PETER  KINDRED 


BY 


ROBERT  NATHAN 


NEW  YORK 

DUFFIELD  AND  COMPANY 

1919 


Copyright,  1919,  by 
DUFFIELD  &  COMPANY 


tt'i 


"F1BST  BOOKS  TO  OLDEST  FRIENDS." 

To  My  Father  and  My  Mother,  for  their 
humor  and  example,  their  courage  and  affeo- 
tion;  and  to  the  Old  One  and  those  others  of 
the  Beloved  Three  to  whom,  those  happy  win 
ter  evenings,  this  book  was  read  cliapter  'by 
chapter  as  it  was  written,  while  the  fire  burned 
in  the  stove,  and  the  night  wind  "blew  over 
Hartsdale. 


PETER  KINDRED 


PETER  KINDRED 


CHAPTER  I 

pHILLIPS  EXETER  stands  gravely  to  the  sun 
A  along  a  wide  street  of  mighty  and  venerable 
trees.  The  New  Hampshire  town  of  Exeter  lies, 
so  to  speak,  in  the  shadow  of  the  school,  for  al 
though  by  history  the  town  was  there  first,  it  has 
been  so  far  passed  in  regard,  that  to  speak  of  Ex 
eter  to-day,  is  to  speak  of  the  Academy.  More 
over,  to  the  boy  of  sixteen,  Exeter  is  a  name  to  be 
proud  of,  smacking  a  little  of  Eton  and  Rugby,  and 
with  almost  the  same  academic  flavor  as  Harvard. 
There  may  be — I'll  not  deny  it — one  boy  in  any 
hundred  to  whom  the  name  signifies  nothing,  but 
all  the  other  ninety-nine  boys  will  nod  their  heads 
if  Exeter  is  mentioned.  For  there  is  something 
of  magic  in  the  name;  Exeter  could  be  nothing 
but  a  school,  a  very  old  school,  standing  gravely 
among  old  trees.  This  magic  it  divides  with 
Andover,  Lawrenceville  and  Hotchkiss,  but  ob 
viously  Exeter  has  the  more  important  and 
learned  ring  to  it ;  it  is  a  more  satisfactory  name, 
a  more  dignified  mouthful. 

3 


4  PETER    KINDRED 

The  town,  in  autumn,  rambling  in  a  slight 
valley  among  forests,  is  as  lovely  a  spot  as  in  all 
New  England.  It  is  on  the  frontier  of  the  north, 
and  lies  beneath  a  deeper  sky  than  even  Boston, 
in  a  clearer  air.  Fires  of  gathered  brown  leaves 
tang  through  October;  the  air  grows  colder  and 
and  brighter,  and  vital  with  sunlight  like  some 
delicate  and  potent  vintage.  All  this  the  new 
student  notices  not  at  all ;  he  is  engrossed  in  novel 
sensations  proper. 

From  the  moment  he  steps  into  the  dusty  train 
bound  for  Exeter,  in  the  dark  and  forever  un 
washed  station  at  Boston,  his  life  becomes  def 
initely  enriched.  The  boy — but  there,  he  is  a  boy 
no  longer;  he  is  a  student  at  Exeter,  an  Exonian 
(a  name  that  he  will  discover  later,  and  probably 
dislike)  and  an  upper  middler.  Within  a  week  he 
will  be  asked  to  give  the  ablative  of  something,  and 
addressed  as  Mr.  Kindred  by  the  famous,  white 
haired  professor.  So  I  shall  not  call  him  the  boy, 
either,  but  the  man,  Peter  Kindred. 

Born  in  New  York  at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  he  had  grown  in  the  usual  manner,  ac 
cepting  his  father's  beliefs  as  he  accepted  his 
more  gaudy  ties,  glad,  indeed,  that  there  should  be 
such  beliefs,  and  that  he  should  be  able  to  digest 
them.  He  lived  by  rule  of  fact;  questions  were 
asked  and  answered  over  his  head,  and  he  ac 
cepted  the  outcome  without  more  ado.  At  times 
he  was  rebellious,  but  never  as  one  who  fought  for 
the  right,  rather  as  one  who  secretly  knew  himself 


PETER   KINDRED  5 

to  be  wrong,  but  wished  that  he  were  right,  and 
hoped  by  making  a  vast  deal  of  pother  to  create 
a  small  atmosphere  of  Tightness.  In  all,  he  was  a 
healthy  lad,  not  overly  robust,  keenly  imaginative, 
and  as  for  his  easy  system  of  ethics  I  would  not 
have  him  otherwise,  for  men  who  disagree  with 
their  fathers  before  they  are  sixteen,  are  great 
nuisances,  unless  their  fathers  are  drunkards. 
But  Peter's  father  was  not;  he  was  an  over  clerk, 
possessed  of  a  small  income,  at  least,  an  income 
small  for  New  York.  He  labored  nine  hours  a 
day,  had  never  labored  less,  and  probably  never 
would,  but  lived  contentedly  still,  and  took  his 
joys  pleasantly.  He  held  no  theory  of  the  leisure 
class,  but  understood  after  a  fashion  that  one 
might  be  a  gentleman  or  not,  and  brought  up  Peter 
to  be  a  gentleman. 

That  was  why  at  sixteen  Peter  was  sent  to 
Exeter  from  a  New  York  public  school.  It  was 
no  small  sacrifice  for  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Kindred,  and 
even  to  Peter's  younger  sister  who  remained  at 
home;  for  Peter's  father  it  meant  severe  economy 
and  even  longer  hours  of  work,  it  meant  the  cur 
tailment  of  many  of  his  small  pleasures,  but  he  had 
never  planned  otherwise ;  Peter  should  be  a  gentle 
man,  although  he  hardly  knew  why.  It  was  enough 
that  other  men  sent  their  sons  to  college.  As  he 
remarked  to  his  wife,  Peter  should  have  a  chance, 
but  what  he  expected  of  him  afterwards  I  do  not 
know,  and  neither  did  he. 

No  thrill  is  comparable  to  a  man's  first  glimpse 


6  PETER    KINDRED 

of  a  real  football  player.  If  the  man  is  from  New 
York,  where  there  are  no  football  players  of  dis 
tinction,  the  creature  will  appear  very  close  to 
divinity.  Peter  Kindred  spent  the  two  hours  of 
his  ride  from  Boston  to  Exeter  in  gaping  about 
the  car,  picking  out  football  men.  There  were,  in 
truth,  no  football  men  on  that  train,  but  there 
were  many  who  might  have  been;  big,  raw-boned 
westerners  with  fair  hair  and  ruddy  cheeks,  of  a 
type  entirely  novel  to  Peter.  Such  men  never 
live  in  New  York.  The  New  York  man  is  small 
and  preoccupied.  Later  that  day  Peter  did  see  a 
real  hero,  one  Buck  O'Brien,  a  famous  halfback, 
and  the  fact  that  O'Brien  was  short  and  bunched 
and  dapper  lessened  no  whit  the  awe  born  in 
Peter's  mind. 

To  Peter,  the  horde  of  great  blonde  huskies  in 
their  gray  sweaters  and  dirty  canvas  togs, 
mounted  above  the  fretful  sons  of  successful  busi 
ness  men  and  held  a  short  but  undisputed  reign. 
Watching  O'Brien,  Peter,  thinking  of  his  father 
and  his  own  sallow  acquaintances  in  New  York, 
was  abashed. 

What  normal  city  boy  has  ever  gone  to  Exeter 
and  failed  to  accept  brawn  as  a  new  basis  for  an 
estimate  of  the  wo  rid  f 

To  the  New  Yorker  the  most  significant  thing 
about  New  England  is  the  odor.  It  is  a  fragrance 
of  farm  houses  and  apple  orchards,  of  small  rivers 
and  low,  rocky  hills.  It  is  a  land  of  homespun. 
Peter  will  tell  you  that  even  today  he  remembers 


PETER    KINDRED  7 

the  smell  of  country  harness  in  the  cab  he  hired 
to  take  him  to  the  school,  the  unfriendly  cleanli 
ness  of  his  rooms,  and  many  odors  that  he  cannot 
very  well  describe,  except  to  say  that  there  was 
the  breath  of  wood  fires  throughout  everything, 
and  that  the  dormitories  held  an  odor  at  once 
aloof  and  aged,  with  a  faint  touch  of  soap  and 
water,  and  another  of  tobacco. 

The  freedom  of  having  classes  scattered  througK 
the  day,  and  being  wholly  at  liberty  between  them, 
delighted  him,  and  gave  him  a  fine  sense  of  grow 
ing  up.  Watching  the  team  scrimmaging  on  the 
practice  fields,  with  the  meadows  and  the  dim 
autumn  woods  across  the  river  under  the  sweep  of 
open  sky,  stirred  in  Peter  a  sense  of  importance, 
a  sense  of  energy  directed  at  a  goal,  enthusiasm, 
a  sense  of  belonging,  somehow,  to  an  heroic  group. 
But  for  the  most  part  the  school  did  much  to  re 
press  him,  and  his  importance  was  manifest  most 
ly  at  home  during  the  holidays.  The  academic 
hush  of  the  old  school  building,  the  wide  chapel  in 
which  he  met  many  of  the  traditions  and  customs 
of  the  school,  and  felt  before  their  hoary  dignity 
his  own  exceeding  youth,  the  severe  and  imper 
sonal  routine  of  the  class  room  that  drove  him 
often  miserably  to  his  desk  until  late  at  night,  and 
the  quiet  roads  between  old  houses  and  old  trees, 
did  much  to  give  him  over  to  loneliness  and  a  faint 
melancholy. 

He  made  no  friends  his  first  year  at  Exeter. 
There  were  chance  acquaintanceships  from  the 


8  PETER    KINDRED 

dining  hall  and  from  the  class  room,  but  he  had  no 
friend  in  whose  room  he  could  be  at  home  until 
well  into  his  second  year.  After  the  custom  of  the 
school  he  said  his  "h'are  ye"  to  whomsoever  he 
passed  in  the  street,  and  that  was  about  all.  I 
should  not  say  that  it  was  entirely  his  fault,  nor 
could  I  say  that  it  was  not.  He  was  too  aware  of 
the  little  he  had  to  offer ;  it  was  not  modesty,  but 
a  true  humility.  He  thought  it  quite  proper  that 
he  should  be  unnoticed.  He  grew  to  recognize 
faces;  they  were  impersonal  faces,  belonging  to 
this  man  who  knew  the  leader  of  the  glee  club,  and 
to  that  man  who  knew  nobody.  Of  the  two,  the 
man  who  knew  the  leader  of  the  glee  club  was 
the  more  polite.  For  the  rest,  they  were  equally 
unfriendly.  Peter  accepted  it  philosophically 
enough;  from  his  corner,  above  the  luxurious 
coffee  of  a  late  breakfast,  he  watched  groups  of 
cold  cheeked,  hair  tossed  New  Englanders  come 
stamping  up  the  wooden  stairs  of  the  old  P.  E.  A., 
laughing  and  trampling.  Into  the  post  office, 
warm,  snug,  murmurous  with  the  sunny,  low  talk 
of  men  he  went  unobtrusively  and  shyly;  at  noon 
he  walked  alone  on  Water  Street,  and  went  silently 
in  and  out  of  the  musty  gloom  of  Batchelders  for 
his  paper.  At  evening,  above  his  gorgeous  but 
lonely  waffles  in  Billie's,  he  saw  the  grave  South 
erners  come  down  the  steps  into  the  dusky  light 
and  heard  them  drawl  softly  together.  He  envied 
all  these  heroes  their  company,  and  yet,  if  they 
had  spoken  to  him,  he  would  have  been  painfully 


PETER   KINDRED  9 

at  a  loss.  However,  there  was  no  possibility  of 
their  ever  noticing  the  youngster,  Peter  Kindred, 
who  said  nothing  and  was  nobody. 

His  family  found  him  sober  and  reflective,  more 
quiet  than  he  had  been,  uninterested  in  old  ac 
quaintances.  It  worried  his  mother,  who  attrib 
uted  it  to  inferior  nourishment,  but  his  father  ad 
vised  her  that  their  son  was  growing  beyond  non 
sense,  and  that  was  all.  She  said  no  more  about 
it,  but  stuffed  Peter  unconscionably;  he,  soothed 
and  lulled  by  the  care  she  took  of  him  and  the  vast 
amount  of  food  she  stuffed  him  with,  forgot  Exe 
ter  somewhat,  the  clear,  still  evenings,  the  cold 
wide  sky,  the  austere  quiet  of  New  England,  and 
became  again  a  creature  of  some  importance  to 
himself.  That  was  proof  positive  to  Mrs.  Kin 
dred,  and  she  reproached  herself  bitterly  for  ever 
having  let  him  leave  her  for  such  a  place,  where 
without  doubt  he  was  being  starved.  Yet  Peter 
missed  the  waffles  and  he  rather  missed  the  coffee, 
too,  sweet,  steaming  coffee  in  large,  thick  mugs; 
however,  he  ate  all  he  could,  and  wisely  held  his 
peace. 

The  cold  silence  of  the  snow,  the  quiet  frost  of 
winter  evenings  when  he  turned  from  the  growing 
dusk  of  the  wide  countryside,  from  the  fresh  and 
far  travelled  wind  to  the  warm  solitude  of  his 
room,  fostered  his  loneliness  and  saddened  him. 
It  was  the  sorrow  of  youth  inarticulate,  sorrow  be 
cause  the  earth  was  beautiful. 

All  winter  Exeter  sparkled  with  sun,  and  skates 


10  PETER    KINDRED 

flashed  up  and  down  the  river,  but  Peter  kept  too 
often  to  his  room.  He  took  little  pleasure  in  cold. 
If  he  skated,  his  fingers  and  his  toes  would  hurt 
him;  sometimes  he  did  skate,  and  bought  hot 
frankfurters  and  coffee  afterwards.  Then  he  felt 
splendid,  but  there  was  nothing  for  him  to  do  later 
save  read  his  Latin,  and  he  felt  very  little  like 
doing  it.  Yet  if  he  sat  alone  as  comfortably  as  he 
could,  his  feet  in  warm  house  slippers,  he  thought 
of  none  but  small  things.  For  the  most  part  he 
dreamed  of  impossible  adventures,  and  gave  him 
self  up  to  heroic  imaginings.  Sometimes  he 
walked  with  an  acquaintance  until  the  clear  green 
sky  and  an  evening  star  betokened  supper  time. 
Sometimes  he  wandered  aimlessly  about  the  gym 
nasium,  attempting  this  and  that,  but  he  hadn't 
the  patience  to  practice  at  anything. 

Spring  with  gnarled  and  broken  lines  made 
gaunt  New  England,  and  through  the  bleak  days 
of  March  and  April,  Peter  found  it  pleasanter  to 
apply  himself  closely  to  his  work.  He  had  lived 
down  his  fear  of  the  class  room,  but  there  had 
grown  in  its  place  a  wholesome  respect  for  its 
logic;  he  did  not  find  it  a  difficult  matter  to  do  well 
in  his  studies;  he  would  gladly  have  matched  his 
learning  at  times  against  that  of  the  professors, 
but  he  dreaded  the  sullen  disfavor  of  the  class. 
What  short  debates  he  was  party  to,  he  entered 
fervently,  although  he  was  generally  wrong,  but 
quick  to  admit  it.  He  grew  to  take  pleasure  in  the 
unravelling  of  an  idea,  but  he  was  ashamed  to 


PETER    KINDRED  11 

thrust  himself  forward.  It  was  like  taking  an 
unfair  advantage  of  fame  from  behind  profes 
sorial  skirts.  Nor  did  his  instructors  take  much 
pleasure  in  his  arguments. 

May  found  him  suddenly  and  swiftly,  and 
troubled  him  with  lilacs.  Which  were  not  all,  I 
tMnk,  as  he  passed  the  Plimpton  fields  and  heard 
the  voices  of  girls1  iii  the  woods  across  the  river. 
But  there,  too,  he  was  diffident ;  he  did  not  believe 
that  the  pink-cheeked  and  laughter-loving  semi 
nary  girl  would  be  tolerant  of  him,  when  she  might 
listen  to  the  ribald  court  of  what  hero  she  would. 
Again,  he  would  have  been  hopelessly  befuddled  if 
one  had  smiled  on  him,  and  it  would  have  been  a 
miserable  youth  who,  striving  vainly  to  be  un 
concerned,  did  finally  put  his  arm  about  her  waist. 
Indeed,  a  maiden  smiled  at  him  once,  at  least  if 
she  did  not  smile,  she  looked  roguishly  at  him,  and 
although  he  had  been  expecting  it,  and  had  pre 
pared  the  banter  to  be  exchanged,  he  could  do 
nothing  but  run  away  as  fast  as  his  legs  would 
carry  him. 

And  yet,  for  all  the  drifting,  for  all  the  inex 
pressive  motion  of  this  first  year  at  Exeter,  it  was 
a  mighty  year  for  Peter. 

It  was  the  beginning  of  his  true  life,  and  marked 
his  first  conscious  introduction  to  himself  as  a 
unit  of  more  or  less  importance  among  other 
units.  It  brought  before  him  another  ideal  of 
manhood  than  the  one  he  had  known,  and  new 
vistas  of  work  and  solitude.  Before  Exeter  there 


12  PETER    KINDRED 

had  been  gentle  slopes ;  it  was  the  sudden  swoop 
over  the  tobogganed  hill,  and  the  falling  away  into 
flight,  incomparably  lovely  and  tenuous,  though 
how  lovely  and  how  tenuous  he  would  not  realize 
until  long  afterward. 

He  returned  to  school  his  second  year  with 
greater  confidence.  He  had  ivo  group  of  iriends 
to  make  joyous  the  tidying  of  his  new  quarters, 
but  the  school  was  his  friend,  the  unchanging 
halls,  the  majestic  trees,  and  the  October  wind. 
Small  things  made  him  welcome,  the  knowledge 
of  places  and  events,  familiar  eating  houses,  the 
ability  to  accept  old  duties  lightly,  and  to  direct 
worried  newcomers.  He  greeted  more  men  than 
he  had  known  before,  and  was  greeted  by  them 
in  turn ;  his  friends  of  the  last  year  were  glad  to 
see  him.  It  seemed  to  him  as  though  he  could 
boast  of  some  small  place  in  Exeter,  and  he  was 
comfortably  aware  that  he  had  not  come,  but  that 
he  had  returned. 

Perhaps  it  was  this  new  dignity  that  impelled 
him  to  ask  David  to  his  room,  and  so  into  the 
years  before  him.  He  had  noticed  him  wandering 
a  bit  forlornly  in  search  of  some  hall  or  other,  a 
short,  dark  fellow,  with  eager  black  eyes,  and  a 
twinkle  at  the  end  of  his  nose.  They  found  the 
place  together,  and  later  David  went  back  with 
Peter. 

It  was  easy  for  Peter  to  talk  to  him;  he  had  a 
pleasant  way  of  listening,  and  an  expressive  way 


PETER   KINDRED  13 

of  speaking.  He  made  remarks  significant  with 
his  hands,  which  were  rugged,  and  yet  suggestive 
of  delicacy.  He  admitted  his  musicianship,  and 
that  evening  in  his  own  room  he  played  for  Peter 
a  raw-boned  piano  he  had  rented.  He  played  with 
a  great  show  of  temperament  which  won  Peter  at 
once,  and  unknown  parts  of  him  stirred  to  tho 
music. 

David  was  as  much  impressed  with  the  stern 
ness  of  Peter's  mind,  admiring  the  fashion  in 
which  Peter  marshalled  his  facts  for  use.  As  for 
David,  he  was  unaccustomed  to  facts,  and  had 
small  use  for  them,  but  dismissed  questions  he 
could  not  answer  lightly.  Peter 's  influence  roused 
him,  however,  and  his  more  facile  but  less  logical 
mind  pried  into  corners  where  Peter  did  not  go. 
Within  a  month  they  had  become  inseparable 
companions,  and  Peter's  nature  grew  and  bur 
geoned.  He  discovered  music,  and  found  that 
through  David  his  sense  of  Autumn  beauty,  of 
youth  and  of  vague  romance  could  become  more  or 
less  articulate. 

They  talked  together  of  personal  things,  often 
of  death,  but  never  of  life.  There  was  no  need  to 
talk  of  life,  it  was  comprehensible,  but  death  was 
not.  They  were  in  the  process  of  discarding  God ; 
to  Peter  God  had  outlived  His  usefulness.  He 
had  been  a  good  God,  and  had  zealously  guarded 
Peter  at  night,  from  prayer  time  to  waking.  He 
had  been  a  satisfactory  Cause,  to  Whom  it  had 
been  an  easy  matter  to  attribute  effects.  But  as 


14  PETER    KINDRED 

the  night  time  grew  precious  for  sleep,  prayer 
time  grew  irksome,  and  God  was  forgotten.  And 
then,  as  Peter's  learning  grew,  questions  arose 
that  were  not  answerable  by  the  forgotten  God. 
So  Peter  had  accepted  life,  and  wondered  dis 
mally  about  death,  wishing  that  there  were  a  God, 
but  knowing  that  there  was  not. 

Confronted  with  Peter's  insistence  upon,  at 
least,  a  quest,  David,  too,  was  unable  to  accept  his 
childhood  faith. 

"I  am  a  Jew,"  he  said.  "But  it  is  silly  to  be 
lieve  that  the  one  God  would  accept  you  and  not 
accept  me,  or  the  myriad  creatures  of  even 
stranger  faith  than  mine  who  live  on  all  the 
million  planets.  That  would  be  too  erratic." 

Peter  sliced  the  argument  keenly. 

"It  seems  absurd  to  believe  in  a  God  who  would 
pick  and  choose,  but  it  is  even  more  absurd  to 
reverence  a  God  with  no  choice  at  all." 

Peter  had  accepted  the  fact  that  David  was  a 
Jew,  much  as  he  accepted  his  friend's  pliant  wit, 
his  music,  the  twinkle  of  his  nose.  He  had  never 
known  any  other  Jew;  he  did  not  care  for  the 
word.  If  the  word  had  been  Saxon,  or  Scot,  if 
there  had  been  the  broad  flavor  of  the  land  in  it, 
he  would  never  have  thought  the  Jews  an  inferior 
people,  nor,  indeed,  would  anyone,  but  there  is  an 
unpleasant  sound  to  the  word  Jew,  and  Hebrew  is 
as  bad  as  Hittite. 

Exeter  did  not  share  Peter's  indifference  to 
David's  race,  and  left  the  two  of  them  quite  alone. 


PETER    KINDRED  15 

But  David  was  well  versed  in  solitude,  and  Peter 
had  David,  his  friend;  they  had  no  need  of  other 
company.  As  for  the  Kindreds,  they  accepted 
David,  doubtfully  at  first,  but  with  increasing  tol 
erance,  although  Mrs.  Kindred  was  somewhat  up 
set  for  a  while  that  Peter's  only  friend  at  Exeter 
should  be  a  Jew.  Among  the  faculty,  however, 
the  two  friends  were  well  liked. 

Inevitably  with  the  vanishing  of  loneliness,  the 
old  heroes  came  slowly  to  lose  their  potency  to 
Peter.  David  admired  brawn  as  Peter  did,  but  he 
was  swifter  to  make  a  mock  of  stupidity,  and  in 
deed,  with  a  few  famous  exceptions,  Peter  could 
no  longer  deny  that  the  brawny  were  very,  very 
stupid.  Yet  he  was  loth  to  surrender  his  awe  of 
them,  for  there  seemed  to  be  nothing  to  take  its 
place.  And  so,  for  a  while,  he  clung  obstinately  to 
his  heroes,  but  therein,  I  dare  say,  he  was  no  dif 
ferent  from  any  other  school  boy,  for  the  Ameri 
can  student  cares  little  who  earns  him  his  glory, 
or  what,  indeed,  that  glory  may  be.  Certainly 
Peter  paraded  down  Fifth  Avenue  on  a  certain 
holiday  after  a  victory  over  Andover,  no  less 
proudly,  and  wore  his  red  carnation  no  less 
jauntily  because,  forsooth,  the  victory  had  been 
won  by  a  lumberjack  from  Maine  whom  Peter  had 
never  met,  and  whom,  in  his  heart  he  thought  a 
boorish  fellow. 

Peter  accepted  his  own  friendlessness  cheer 
fully,  but  he  could  not  rid  himself  of  a  patient 
criticism  of  the  school's  attitude  toward  him,  to- 


16  PETER    KINDRED 

ward  David,  and  toward  the  popular  lumberjacks 
and  heirs-apparent.  As  yet,  however,  he  had  noth 
ing  to  offer  in  place  of  them.  It  disturbed  him  a 
bit  and  made  him  more  defensive  than  he  would 
otherwise  have  been,  and  more  inquisitive  about 
people ;  the  two  friends  held  long  and  earnest  dis 
cussions  together,  to  gauge  the  worth  of  one  man 
or  another.  But  David  was  rather  inclined  to  in 
sist  upon  sympathy,  appreciation,  and  imagination 
in  a  man,  whereas  Peter  was  unwilling  to  insist 
upon  anything.  It  seemed  almost  as  though  he 
were  looking  for  something  behind  a  man,  some 
enthusiasm  or  other,  some  cause,  but  he  could  not 
formulate  it  in  his  mind.  The  splendid  youngsters 
of  Exeter  lacked  immortality;  their  greatness  was 
too  fugitive,  and  the  busy  men  of  his  own  city 
were  not  great  at  all. 

Winter,  with  David's  room  as  an  auxiliary 
refuge,  was  a  much  different  matter  from  the 
year  before.  The  sense  of  a  wide  country  hushed 
with  snow,  of  scattered  villages  and  lonely  houses, 
the  yellow  lamps  of  cottages  low  across  the  drifted 
fields,  and  the  profound  sense  of  isolation  that 
had  so  preyed  upon  him  now  rendered  him  more 
warmly  aware  of  his  own  snug  existence,  and  the 
insistent  beauty  of  the  winter  but  added  to  the 
drowsy  quiet  of  his  room.  And  all  this  because 
there  was  another  creature  who  would  at  such  and 
such  a  time  come  familiarly  through  his  doorway, 
or  whistle  to  his  window. 


PETER   KINDRED  17 

April  went  gradually  into  May,  among  showers 
and  deepening  green,  and  the  school  years  drew 
to  their  close.  The  track  season  was  over,  and 
resurgent  color  scattered  across  the  Plimpton 
fields  as  the  various  baseball  teams  warmed  the 
kinks  out  of  their  muscles.  Youngsters  cavorted 
on  the  tennis  courts,  and  village  maidens, strolled 
along  the  freshening  streets,  their  hair  caught  in 
colored  ribbons,  their  trim  bodies  in  white  linen. 
Over  the  top  of  the  horizon  the  final  examinations 
poked  their  fearsome  heads,  and  Peter  bent  over 
his  desk  with  determination. 

Exeter  was  nearly  at  an  end,  and  with  it,  Peter's 
youthful  apprenticeship  to  manhood.  The  white- 
haired  professor  had  called  him  a  man,  and  there 
fore  so  had  I,  but  he  is  still  a  boy.  For  where  is 
manhood  to  be  found?  In  the  intolerance  of 
faith?  Or  in  the  charity  beyond? 

So  the  finals  crawled  over  the  hills  from  Cam 
bridge,  twisting  their  horrid  necks,  and  Exeter 
droned  with  preparations  to  meet  them.  Peter 
had  no  fear  of  them,  but  an  anxiety  to  be  done; 
at  his  preliminaries  the  year  before  he  had  found 
how  strongly  Exeter  had  prepared  him.  But  he 
had  found,  too,  how  tired  the  long  examinations 
made  him,  and  what  little  enjoyment  there  was  in 
anything  until  they  were  over. 

With  David  he  began  to  consider  Harvard  curi 
ously,  as  one  would  consider  a  plighted  woman. 
There  was  this  that  he  knew,  for  instance,  and 
these  many  things  that  he  did  not.  He  had  picked 


18  PETER    KINDRED 

out  a  room  for  himself  during  the  winter;  the 
two  had  thought  it  better  not  to  room  together. 
As  David  pointed  out,  two  rooms  meant  society, 
a  friend,  a  place  to  visit.  They  were  worried 
about  a  great  many  small  questions,  and  David 
confessed  to  a  fear  that  something  or  other  would 
happen  without  him,  so  that  he  would  have  no 
place  to  eat  and  no  classes  to  attend  and  no  notice 
taken  of  him  at  all,  and,  in  his  gloomier  moments, 
probably  even  no  bed  to  sleep  in.  Peter  felt 
much  the  same  about  it,  but  fortified  himself  with 
the  thought  that  of  the  many  thousands  who  had 
entered  Harvard  in  the  preceding  generations, 
none  to  his  knowledge  had  ever  experienced  in 
surmountable  difficulty  in  living,  and  so  he,  too, 
would  probably  manage  to  live  somehow  or  other, 
by  looking  around  him  very  carefully,  and  letting 
nothing  escape  him.  There  were,  besides,  some 
fifty  men  of  his  class  who  were  entering  Harvard 
with  him,  and  if  they  were  frightened  about  it, 
they  certainly  concealed  it  admirably.  Where 
fore  he  resolutely  put  his  fears  behind  him,  and 
stuffed  his  memory  with  Latin  verbs,  geometrical 
triangles,  and  historic  affairs. 

June  came,  and  in  the  drowsy  gymnasium  Peter 
and  David,  their  watches  before  them,  coats  off 
and  shirt  sleeves  rolled  up,  sped  lightly  through 
their  finals,  while  in  the  noonday  sun  the  old  dor 
mitories  nodded  and  dozed,  preparing  for  their 
serene  summer  slumber.  Then  came  days  of  utter 
content,  of  late  breakfasts,  and  long  evenings 


PETER   KINDRED  19 

spent  together  idly,  with  no  thought  of  any  mor 
row,  while  Peter  dreamed  from  the  depths  of  a 
chair  and  David  ran  vagrant  melodies  across  faint 
harmonies.  Days  of  entire  rest  they  were,  when 
the  two  friends  could  find  no  dispute  to  rouse 
them  from  their  pleasant  listlessness.  And  then 
came  mothers  and  fathers  to  wake  the  silent 
school,  sisters  and  brothers,  pretty  cousins  and 
portly  uncles,  and  the  senior  class,  donning  their 
caps  and  gowns  for  the  last  time,  marched  sol 
emnly  and  with  traditional  tread  into  the  crowded 
chapel,  and  so  out  of  Exeter.  Out  of  the  wide  vil 
lage  streets,  the  shadowed  paths  and  rivered 
woods,  but  not  out  of  school ;  for  many  generations 
whose  feet  have  been  long  silent  in  the  halls,  are 
Exeter,  their  songs,  their  heroes,  and  their  myths, 
and  as  each  class  moves  as  a  graduate  across  the 
campus,  that  class  becomes  a  part  of  the  tradi 
tion,  and  becomes  one  with  Exeter. 

Arm  in  arm,  Peter  and  David  walked  to  Peter's 
room,  arm  in  arm  they  climbed  the  worn,  familiar 
stair,  and  pushed  through  the  open  door.  Below 
them  murmured  the  crowd;  doors  were  opened 
and  shut,  calls  drifted  in  lazily  through  the  wide 
window  in  the  noonday  drowse.  Exeter  was  at  an 
end;  they  had  crossed  a  magic  and  tremendous 
mountain ;  they  were  graduates.  They  sat  a  long 
while  in  silence,  staring  out  at  the  green  branches 
of  trees  with  the  sunlight  among  the  leaves.  Be 
fore  them  lay  the  true  apprenticeship,  the  final 
preparation  for  what  magnificence  they  did  not 


20  PETER    KINDRED 

know.  To  the  south  Harvard  lay  quietly  beneath 
the  blue  sky ;  from  her  halls  there  had  lately  gone 
forth  men  into  that  unknown,  bravely  and  mar- 
velously  accoutred.  The  thought  grasped  Peter 
about  the  heart,  and  he  turned  gravely  to  David. 

" David,"  he  said,  and  stretched  his  arms  above 
his  head,  "next  year  I  shall  know  so  much  .  .  . 
what  there  is  to  do,  and  what  there  is  to  be  .  .  ." 

"Peter,"  David  said  solemnly,  "I  wish  I  knew 
where  to  sign  up  for  my  meals!" 


CHAPTER  H 

HOWEVER,  it  seemed  that  Harvard  Had  ex 
pected  their  coining,  and  when  Peter  regis 
tered,  which  he  found  to  be  a  simple  enough 
matter,  no  one  told  him  that  he  had  no  right  to 
do  so,  but  a  weary  and  patient  man  handed  him  a 
large  pink  card,  and  sent  him  in  search  of  his 
faculty  advisor.  He  was  struck  by  the  great  num 
ber  of  such  pink  cards  moving  aimlessly  about. 
Upper  classmen  carried  different  colors,  and 
moved  about  more  purposefully,  much  as  the  sec 
ond  year  men  had  done  at  Exeter.  Peter  made 
his  way  to  Warren  House,  and  waited  on  his  ad 
visor,  watching  the  small  group  of  men  about  him 
curiously.  There  was  an  unkempt  lad  from  some 
northern  village,  powerful,  and  mother  fearing. 
There  was  a  lean  and  wan-looking  elderly  man 
who  clutched  a  couple  of  shabby  books  close  to  his 
coat,  and  asked  questions  of  Peter  humbly.  There 
was  a  keen-faced  youth  in  tweeds,  who  wore  tre 
mendous  rimmed  glasses  which  gave  him  an  af 
fable  and  owllike  appearance,  and  an  aristocratic- 
si 


22  PETER    KINDRED 

looking  fellow  with  a  delicately  chiselled  face,  who 
carried  himself  delightfully,  his  shoulders  back 
and  his  chin  high,  and  whom  the  professor  seemed 
very  glad  to  see  again.  Peter  thought  he  was  very 
fine,  and  wondered  who  he  was ;  he  wished  that  he 
himself  made  so  splendid  an  appearance,  or  that 
David  did. 

Men  whose  lives  are  given  to  the  contempla 
tion  of  letters  and  sciences,  who  do  not  spend 
their  days  bickering  in  the  market  place,  but 
whose  dens  are  chosen  from  among  the  choicest 
rooms  in  the  house,  dens  that  remain  strewn  and 
inviolate  for  years,  attain  a  quiet  and  complacent 
dignity  which  creates  a  deeper  impression  upon 
the  perplexed  youth  of  our  land  than  all  the 
doughtiest  and  most  profound  lectures  ever  given. 
There  is  something  about  a  serene  and  vigorous 
old  age  which  constitutes  a  fairer  promise  of 
heaven  than  all  the  creeds  and  tenets  of  belief. 

Peter 's  advisor  was  such  a  man,  a  stalwart  and 
patriarchal  figure,  unhurried  and  resolute.  Peter 
felt  that  he  must  know  a  vast  deal,  as  indeed  he 
did,  but  Peter  did  not  give  sufficient  credit  to  the 
holy  quiet  of  the  man's  den,  and  to  the  rows  upon 
rows  of  friendly  books  between  the  ceiling  and 
the  floor.  But,  mind  you,  I  would  not  advocate  a 
den  of  that  sort  for  any  common  man;  he  would 
do  nothing  in  it  at  all. 

For  all  his  learning,  the  professor  proved  to  be 
amazingly  ignorant  of  the  courses  Peter  had 
chosen  to  attend,  and  since  there  was  therefore 


PETER    KINDRED  23 

nothing  to  say  one  way  or  another  about  them, 
he  signed  Peter's  card  and  dismissed  him.  Peter 
passed  the  Union  with  a  warming  sense  of  belong 
ing  finally  to  Harvard,  and  walked  slowly  down 
Massachusetts  Avenue  toward  Harvard  Square. 

The  street,  with  its  small,  well-appointed  shops, 
hummed  with  the  coming  and  going  of  students. 
They  passed  in  groups  or  singly,  alert,  cheery, 
well-groomed  men ;  and  all  with  the  same  satisfied 
look  on  their  faces.  For  a  college  is  no  more  than 
an  attitude  toward  life,  and  the  kindly  gentlemen 
of  Oxford  are  as  far  removed  from  the  contented 
moralists  of  Harvard,  as  the  latter  differ  from 
the  wistful  youths  of  Yale,  and  the  happy  children 
of  Princeton. 

To  Peter  there  was  the  same  romance  in  the 
name  Harvard  as  there  had  been  in  Exeter,  and 
he  was  as  mightily  beguiled  by  the  small  but  ven 
erable  Yard  and  the  enchanted  flavor  of  the  halls, 
which,  like  old  men  before  a  fireside,  seemed  in 
their  silence  to  be  forever  considering  themselves. 

At  Holyoke  Street  he  turned  down  toward 
Mount  Auburn  and  climbed  the  creaking  steps  of 
No.  26.  He  had  chosen  a  room  in  a  ramshackle 
frame  house  at  the  edge  of  the  gold  coast,  opposite 
the  yellow  walls  of  the  Institute. 

Below  his  windows  the  men  passed  down  the 
street,  through  the  gate,  and  into  the  Institute. 
Peter  watched  them  with  a  deal  of  wonder  and 
a  stir  of  envy  at  first.  For  the  Institute  is  the 
solid  basis  of  Harvard  clubdom.  It  goes  through 


24  PETER    KINDRED 

Harvard  with  a  coarse  comb,  separating  the  wheat 
from  the  chaff ;  all  men  who  are  socially  possible 
are  Institute  men.  Among  these  the  exclusive 
clubs  move  with  finer  combs  in  varying  degrees, 
but,  on  the  whole,  a  man  at  Harvard  is  an  Insti 
tute  man,  or  he  is  not. 

Peter 's  room  was  two  dilapidated  flights  up,  but 
he  found,  to  his  surprise,  that  such  a  place  was 
considered  very  fine  at  Harvard,  much  more  de 
sirable,  indeed,  than  the  new  brick  houses  far  re 
moved  from  the  coast,  or  the  dormitories  in  the 
Yard.  But  that  was  characteristic  of  Harvard, 
to  put  up  splendid  draperies  in  a  tumbled  down 
room,  and  glory  in  the  result.  Peter  had  no  splen 
did  draperies,  but  David  envied  him  his  room  and 
his  two  sunny  windows  facing  the  south.  David 
had  chosen  a  modern  brick  building  not  far  from 
the  Square,  where  he  had  his  own  bath  to  delight 
him,  but  no  sun  at  all.  He  had  installed  a  grand 
piano,  and  was  making  a  desk  of  a  soap  box. 

Peter's  room,  at  first  in  its  barrenness,  had  de 
pressed  that  gentleman  almost  to  despair,  but  as 
he  began  to  unpack  his  furniture,  he  saw  some 
possibility  in  it,  and  when  at  last  his  rug  was 
down,  he  haled  David  over  to  view  it.  David  was 
impressed,  but  left  at  once  for  his  soap  box  and 
some  intricate  figuring  he  had  been  doing,  where 
by  he  hoped  to  discover  some  way  of  also  buying 
a  bed. 

Peter's  desk  chair  had  not  come,  and  to  ask  ad 
vice,  he  tapped  on  his  neighbor's  door.  A  voice 


PETER   KINDRED  25 

roared  for  the  son-of-a-gun  to  come  in,  and  he 
stepped  into  a  scene  of  such  boundless  confusion 
that  he  could  do  nothing  but  stare.  At  first  glance 
it  looked  as  though  some  truckman  had  moved 
the  belongings  of  one  room  into  another,  and  had 
dumped  them  all  pell  mell  on  top  of  each  other. 
Clothes  and  books  competed  with  sofa  cushions 
and  pictures  for  the  seats  of  chairs,  and  over 
flowed  onto  the  floor.  Where  there  were  no  books, 
there  were  shoes,  and  occasional  beer  mugs.  In 
the  midst  of  this  chaos  stood  a  dark-browed, 
rugged  man,  puffing  at  a  long  calabash  pipe. 

"Oh,"  he  said,  "come  right  in.  Excuse  me.  I 
thought  you  were  a  friend  of  mine."  He  swept 
the  vista  of  the  room  with  his  arm.  "Find  a  place 
to  sit  down,  and  make  yourself  at  home.  I'm  not 
usually  so  upset,  but  our  amiable  goody  forgot 
me  to-day." 

He  sat  down  himself  and  regarded  Peter  curi 
ously.  Before  him,  Peter  was  shy  and  confused ; 
he  explained  the  reason  for  his  visit,  and  asked 
him  if  he  could  suggest  anything  to  do  about  the 
chair.  The  dark-browed  man  regarded  the  ceil 
ing  somberly,  puffed  at  his  pipe,  and  shook  his 
head,  but  suggested  at  last  that  the  chair  would 
probably  turn  up  some  day,  and  that  a  desk  chair 
was  a  small  matter  at  best,  and  that  if  Peter 
needed  one,  he  could  let  him  have  several  to 
choose  from.  Peter  thanked  him,  and  somewhat 
encouraged,  asked  him  how  one  might  unearth 
the  bursar  and  pay  him  the  fabled  ninety  dollars. 


26  PETER    KINDRED 

The  man  directed  him  to  Dana  Hall,  and  Peter 
asked  him  how  he  would  know  what  to  do  when  he 
got  there. 

" Trust  to  the  Lord,"  said  the  big  man,  and  lost 
himself  in  reverie.  Peter  stammered  a  thanks,  and 
returned  to  the  tidy  primness  of  his  own  room. 
The  advice,  for  all  its  absurdity,  was  soothing  and 
Peter's  troubles  fell  away.  He  no  longer  felt  re 
sponsible  for  his  affair  with  the  bursar. 

That  night  both  he  and  David  went  to  the 
freshman  reception  at  Brooks  House,  hoping  for 
much,  but  doubting  that  anything  would  befall 
them.  They  were  given  little  tags  on  which  they 
wrote  their  names.  These  they  tied  diffidently  in 
their  buttonholes,  where  they  dangled  unnoticed 
for  the  rest  of  the  evening.  With  a  vast  mob  of 
shoving  and  perspiring  men  they  were  herded  into 
a  large  room  where  they  sat  on  the  floor  at  first, 
but  later  stood  in  a  vain  effort  to  hear  some  part 
of  the  speeches.  On  a  low  platform  tall  heroes 
appeared,  bowed,  were  tremendously  applauded, 
spoke,  waved  their  arms,  grinned,  bowed,  and  sat 
down  in  the  din.  Mr.  Molmf  presented  Mr.  Smith 
of  the  Grmmpump,  who  in  turn  presented  Mr. 
Xmymst.  Tommy  Reilly,  captain  of  the  eleven, 
rose  and  received  an  ovation.  Amid  a  dead  si 
lence,  he  started  in. 

"Well,  fellows,"  he  said.  The  applause  was 
interminable.  Through  it  he  went  on. 

"Well,  fellows,  Percy  Haughtoii  here  thinks 
we've  got  a  pretty  good  team  here  this  year,  and 


PETER    KINDRED  27 

I  guess  Yale  will  think  so  all  right."  Cheers, 
shrieks,  whistles,  and  the  prolonged  stamping  of 
feet.  "Well,  fellows,  all  I  want  to  say  is  I  want 
you  fellows  to  stand  back  of  the  team  and  give 
us  the  right  support  and  get  some  good,  snappy 
cheering  over  this  year  when  we  go  down  to  New 
Haven,  and  I  guess  we  can  leave  the  rest  to  Percy 
Haughton  here."  He  bowed  awkwardly  and 
sat  down,  amid  a  bedlam.  Peter  and  David 
fought  their  way  to  the  door  and  emerged  dis 
heveled. 

They  walked  back  through  the  Yard  together 
across  the  Autumn  moonlight,  under  the  loom 
ing,  black  shadows  of  the  dormitories.  Beyond 
the  wall,  a  car  jarred  distantly  around  the  curve 
of  the  street,  and  died  away  toward  Boston.  Oc 
casional  low  voices  reached  them,  and  the  twang 
of  a  mandolin.  The  sky  was  calm  and  luminous 
with  stars,  the  light  breeze  redolent  of  earth.  But 
Peter  and  David  could  find  no  words  to  gauge 
their  thoughts,  wherefore  they  left  each  other 
without  discussing  the  event. 

Again  the  greater  freedom  of  the  college 
aroused  in  Peter  a  sense  of  transformation,  of 
gathering  manhood,  and  for  a  while  he,  too,  walked 
with  his  shoulders  thrown  back  and  his  chin  held 
high.  Then  lectures  began,  and  he  forgot  every 
thing  in  the  rush  to  buy  books,  and  the  trouble  of 
their  expense.  In  the  large  classes  he  sat  un 
noticed,  scribbling  notes,  and  hearing  for  the  first 


28  PETER    KINDRED 

time  new  principles  in  unexplored  fields  of  thought 
discussed  and  expounded.  To  each  he  reacted 
with  a  faint  shock  of  appreciation,  believing  every 
thing,  his  imagination  powerfully  exercised. 
David  came  with  the  same  enthusiasm  from  his 
classes,  and  their  discussions  grew  top  heavy  with 
the  weight  of  their  learning  until  they  made  no 
headway  at  all. 

But  they  were  aware  at  once  that  they  had  been 
made  free  to  enjoy  what  they  would,  and  they 
both  made  all  speed  to  acquire  new  tastes.  It  had 
struck  home  most  of  all  the  day  on  which  the  man 
next  door,  whom  Peter  knew  as  Frank,  had  asked 
Peter  to  drop  in  on  him  for  tea,  and  with  the 
most  serious  manner  in  the  world  had  actually 
boiled  tea  in  an  old  brass  pot,  and  offered  it  to 
Peter  with  an  accompaniment  of  small  cakes. 
The  mere  idea  of  a  man  preparing  tea  would  have 
afforded  Exeter  enough  mirth  for  a  full  season, 
but  at  Harvard  it  was  quite  a  natural  function, 
arousing  no  comment  whatsoever.  I  should  say 
more  of  the  tea  party  in  that  inchoate  room,  to 
whose  needs  no  goody  could  have  ministered,  how 
ever  conscientious,  but  for  the  speed  with  which 
Peter  bought  himself  a  tea  set,  relinquishing  two 
books  to  do  it,  and  in  turn  invited  David  formally 
to  tea.  David,  coming  to  scoff,  remained  to  pray, 
and  thought  it  marvelously  pleasant  and  after  all 
not  as  unmanly  as  one  might  imagine.  But  he 
could  tell  Peter  nothing  about  George  Moore. 

"He  talked  of  him  as  though  of  course  I  knew 


PETER   KINDRED  29 

all  about  him,"  Peter  explained,  "and  so  I  nodded 
my  head  as  wisely  as  I  could.  This  chap  Moore 
mnst  be  somebody." 

And  then  again  as  the  afternoon  waned,  and  it 
was  growing  dusk,  he  spoke  out  of  the  depths  of 
his  chair. 

" There  is  an  awful  lot  to  learn,  David,"  he 
said,  "but  somehow  or  other  I  think  it  will  be 
worth  learning. ' ' 

Peter  and  David  did  nothing  very  startling,  al 
though  they  fairly  luxuriated  in  the  realization 
that  they  might.  Peter,  it  is  true,  bought  an  etch 
ing,  and  spent  the  better  part  of  a  morning  hang 
ing  it  in  his  room,  and  then,  ashamed  to  face  the 
accusing  thought  of  his  father,  tried  to  sell  it  to 
David.  But  David  would  have  none  of  it,  and  so 
Peter  was  forced  to  keep  it  on  his  wall,  and  put 
a  brave  face  on  the  matter. 

Peter  was  amazed  to  hear  lean  and  shabby  men 
dispute  and  argue  in  class  about  minor  points; 
the  tenacity  with  which  they  clung  to  their  ques 
tioning,  and  the  tolerant  silence  in  which  the  class 
accepted  the  interruption,  made  a  deep  impression 
on  him.  He  passed  such  men  often  in  the  street, 
and  his  instinctive  dislike  was  mixed,  neverthe 
less,  with  respect  for  their  dogged  and  real  pas 
sion  to  learn.  Peter,  too,  was  in  quest  of  knowl 
edge,  but  more  as  an  amateur;  it  was  not  such  a 
tremendous  matter  as  all  that  to  him,  and  he  was 
willing  to  take  a  good  part  of  it  on  faith ;  he  did 


30  PETER    KINDRED 

not  donbt  bnt  that  he  would  live  as  well  for  letting 
certain  murky  points  go  by  him  as  he  would  if  he 
understood  everything  thoroughly,  and  when  a 
particularly  bored  class  would  at  last  stamp  its 
displeasure  to  the  floor,  he  felt  that  the  displeas 
ure  was  legitimate  and  stamped  along  with  it. 
The  professors,  almost  without  exception,  took 
joy  in  argument,  and  the  more  deeply  the  debate 
wound  down  into  fine  details,  the  more  excited 
they  grew.  This  recognition  of  the  student  mind 
by  members  of  the  faculty  contributed  to  Peter's 
sense  of  importance,  although  it  astounded  him 
to  hear  aired  the  intricate  knowledge,  acquired  by 
tremendous  reading,  of  those  thin  and  shabby  men 
who  always  argued. 

Even  Peter  essayed  a  discussion  at  one  time, 
but  was  so  bewildered  at  his  temerity  and  his  no 
toriety  that  words  tripped  themselves  up  in  his 
throat  and  lay  there  entangled,  blocking  any  exit. 
So,  his  return  question  remaining  unanswered, 
the  lecturer  went  on  with  his  exposition,  and  Peter 
sat  in  a  large  radius  of  silence,  trying  hard  to 
look  unaware  of  anything  but  his  book. 

Peter's  neighbor  whispered  to  him,  "Did  you 
understand  that?" 

Peter  shook  his  head,  and  the  man  passed  him 
his  notes  which  were  written  very  neatly,  in  great, 
fat  letters.  Peter  smiled  gratefully,  and  after  the 
lecture  was  over  the  two  men  walked  down  the 
steps  of  Sever  together  and  on  past  the  library. 


PETER    KINDRED  31 

Peter  looked  at  his  companion  curiously;  lie  had 
a  delicately  modeled  face,  with  a  smooth  chin; 
his  face  might  have  been  patted  into  shape.  His 
eyes  were  wide  and  blue ;  he  appeared  rather  gen 
tle  and  pleasant. 

"My  name  is  Jill,"  he  said. 

"Mine  is  Kindred,"  Peter  answered. 

"It's  a  very  good  course,  I  believe,"  Jill  said, 
"but  a  little  difficult;  that  is,  not  hard,  you  know, 
but  awkward.  The  man  is  rather  a  bore." 

There  was  nothing  in  particular  to  say  to  that, 
and  the  two  men  parted. 

"Drop  up  to  see  me  some  time,"  Jill  said. 
"Plympton  Street — thirty-five,  I  believe."  He 
waved  his  hand  a  bit  languidly,  and  went  across 
the  Yard,  but  Peter  turned  back  to  his  room  with 
a  sense  of  having  met  someone. 

Tn  Frank's  room  he  found  a  great  blond  hero 
who  sat  sprawled  in  a  chair,  and  looked  at  Peter 
very  much  as  though  he  were  looking  at  a  friend's 
child  brought  out  for  the  occasion. 

"If  you  take  my  advice,"  he  said  to  Peter, 
"you'll  go  out  for  a  managership." 

Peter  looked  at  Frank  rather  frightened  at  that 
and  Frank  burst  out  laughing. 

"Let  him  alone,"  he  said. 

"To  tell  the  truth,"  Peter  said,  "I  rather 
thought  that  the  best  part  of  Harvard  was  not 
having  to  go  out  for  anything." 

The  other  man  regarded  the  ceiling  in  gloomy 
amazement. 


32  PETER    KINDRED 

"I  thought  I  might  try  out  for  one  of  the  liter- 
aries,"  Peter  said  uncertainly. 

The  man  stirred  himself.  '  '  For  heaven  's  sake, ' ' 
he  said,  " don't  go  in  for  that  silly  twaddle.  Do 
something  real." 

"What?"  Peter  asked. 

"Oh,  anything.  Try  out  for  a  team.  Try  out 
for  a  managership.  Soccer  or  lacrosse  or  some 
thing.  Be  somebody.  Don't  be  a  runt." 

"Do  you  think  I  could  make  anything?"  Peter 
asked. 

"Oh  hell,"  the  man  said,  "how  do  I  know?" 

And  later  Frank  came  into  Peter's  room  for  a 
moment. 

"You  know,  I  wouldn't  take  that  too  seriously," 
he  said.  "But  I'd  make  up  my  mind  to  what  I 
wanted  of  Harvard.  If  you  want  the  clubs,  and 
all  that,  you'll  have  to  hop  in,  of  course,  and  be 
someone.  Personally,  I  should  prefer  to  be  a 
runt." 

Then,  as  an  afterthought,  he  added,  "But  don't 
let  that  influence  you,  either." 

It  rather  fitted  in  with  Peter's  thoughts  in  the 
matter,  and  Frank  rather  fitted  in  with  them, 
too.  As  for  him,  although  a  junior,  he  had  taken 
a  vagrant  liking  to  Peter,  who  seemed  almost  mi 
raculously  bewildered.  So  Peter  wondered  what 
he  wanted  of  Harvard,  for  a  while,  and  came  to 
no  conclusion. 

Jill,  too,  gave  him  counsel. 

Peter  came  to  see  him  one  afternoon,  and  found 


PETER    KINDRED  33 

him  in  a  blue  and  gold  dressing  gown,  smoking 
an  elaborate  hookah.  His  room  was  heavily  hung 
with  silk  and  cloth  and  held  a  faintly  pungent  odor 
of  joss  sticks.  Jill  blinked  at  him  from  the  floor, 
where  he  was  sitting  cross-legged,  and  told  him 
lazily  to  come  in  and  find  a  seat.  Above  the  fire 
place  a  brass  idol  stared;  the  room  was  curious 
with  little  bronze  figures  and  gloomy  hangings. 

"I  must  certainly  show  this  to  David,"  Peter 
said  to  himself.  He  thought  it  extremely  fine  and 
very  mature,  and  felt  proud  to  be  there,  in  that 
room  with  Jill,  at  Harvard. 

"You  will  find,"  Jill  said,  "the  literary  crowd 
very  unintelligent  and  brazen;  the  '  Monthly  * 
and  the  *  Advocate' — ill-mannered  boors." 

"This  chap  told  me  to  try  out  for  a  manager 
ship,"  Peter  said.  "How  do  you  do  that?" 

Jill  raised  his  hands  before  him.  "Heavens," 
he  murmured,  "don't  do  that.  There  is  nothing 
sillier  in  all  the  wide  world." 

"But  what  shall  I  do?"  Peter  asked. 

Jill  smoked  meditatively  at  his  hookah,  and  the 
water  cleared  and  clouded.  At  last  he  shrugged 
his  shoulders. 

"My  dear  fellow,"  he  said,  "must  you  rusK 
sophomorically  about?  Nonsense.  Don't  do  any 
thing." 

"Not  anything?"  Peter  asked  in  some  amaze 
ment. 

"I  shouldn't,"  Jill  said,  and  puffed  comfor 
tably. 


34  PETER    KINDRED 

"Yes,"  Peter  said,  "but  you're  settled,  you 


see." 


"Bother,"  said  Jill.    "So  should  you  be." 

"No,"  Peter  answered,  "I'm  not  sure  what  I 
want  of  things." 

"Honors?"  Jill  asked.  "Clubs,  position? 
Silly  rot?" 

"No,"  Peter  said  again,  and  then  he  added, 
"Besides,  what  club  would  have  me?" 

"Any  one,"  Jill  answered,  "if  you  gave  up 
thinking  and  ran  around  and  became  some 
body." 

"Of  course,"  Peter  said,  "I  didn't  come  to  col 
lege  for  that." 

"No,"  Jill  said. 

"But  I  did  come  to  find  out  —  something." 

"Kindred,"  Jill  said,  "you're  too  eager.  If 
you  sat  still  a  bit,  life  would  come  to  you.  Life  is 
meant  to  be  tasted  slowly.  You  will  waste  the 
best  part  of  it  trying  to  find  out  what  it's  all 
about." 

'  '  Perhaps,  '  '  Peter  said  doggedly.  '  '  But  I  shall 
have  to  find  out  what  it  is." 

"You  can  find  it  more  exquisitely  in  a  star 
above  Corey  Hill  at  evening,  or  a  child's  face," 
Jill  said. 

"No,"  Peter  said,  "I'll  not  find  what  I  want  of 
life  in  any  child's  face.  And  I  won't  find  what 
I  want  of  Harvard  there,  either.  It  isn't  clubs, 
but  it's  something.  Something  to  do.  Not  just 
here,  but  always." 


PETER    KINDRED  35 

He  talked  it  over  with  David  that  night,  after 
David  had  been  playing  idly  at  his  great  piano. 

"Do  you  think  I'm  too  eager,  David?"  he  asked. 
"I  suppose  I  am,  a  bit.  And  yet,  I  couldn't  pos 
sibly  sit  quietly  on  the  floor  and  smoke  a  hookah. 
But  you  see,  I  don't  want  to  rush  around  and  be 
a  manager  of  something,  either.  What  do  I  want, 
David?  ...  It  might  be  pleasant  just  to  be  a 
runt,  don't  you  think?  And  yet — one  ought  to  do 
something.'' 

"Of  course,"  David  said. 

Through  the  early  fall  weather,  Peter  did  little 
but  look  carefully  at  men  about  him,  yet  the  more 
he  saw  of  club  men,  the  less  he  thought  that  he, 
too,  might  be  a  club  man.  For  they  seemed 
troubled  by  nothing.  He  and  David  talked  over 
their  days  together. 

"I  love  to  look  at  them,"  Peter  said  to  him,  as 
the  sun  poured  through  his  ancient  windows,  and 
the  two  friends  sat  watching  the  returning  groups 
of  men  stride  from  their  lectures  down  Holyoke 
Street.  "But  they  have  had  everything  settled 
for  them  long  ago." 

"Do  you  know,"  David  said,  "IVe  met  a  re 
markable  man  by  the  name  of  Wiener.  He's  very 
ugly,  and  he  has  classes  in  the  slums." 

"I'm  not  very  keen  on  the  slums,"  Peter  said. 

"I  know  ...  I  wasn't  either.  I'm  not  now,  of 
course  ..." 

He  leaned  from  the  window  and  pointed  to  a 


36  PETER    KINDRED 

dark,  little  man  hurrying  down  the  street,  his 
hands  full  of  books. 

"See,"  he  said,  " there  he  goes.  Hello  .  .  ." 
he  called,  and  waved  his  hand.  The  man  turned 
and  grinned,  and  hurried  on.  But  Peter  at  the 
window  turned  away  uncomfortably. 

"Bother,"  he  said  at  last,  "let's  call  for  Jill 
and  go  to  Boston." 

In  the  evening  the  three  walked  through  the 
lamp-lighted  Square,  and  down  into  the  draughty 
depths  of  the  subway.  The  dull  red  train  poked 
its  blunt  nose  around  a  corner,  and  crawled  to 
their  feet;  with  them  inside  it  ricochetted  off  to 
ward  Boston,  and  with  a  sudden  cessation  of 
clamor,  soared  beautifully  over  the  bridge.  Be 
fore  them  lay  the  Charles,  misted  in  a  strangely 
deep  and  dull  blue,  small  yellow  lights  marking 
the  gradual  curve  of  the  river  bank,  reflected  in 
the  water,  and  dividing  the  monotone  of  horizon 
and  river.  Above  the  lights  along  the  river  bank 
stretched  the  low  roofs  of  Boston,  in  faint  tones, 
while  in  the  clear  green  sky  toward  the  west  a 
solitary  evening  star  hung  midway  between  earth 
and  the  zenith.  Farther  down  the  river  Harvard 
Bridge  spun  a  gradual  arc  of  lights  from  shore  to 
shore,  and  beyond  it  Corey  Hill  was  already  lost 
in  the  dusk.  It  was  a  landscape  that  Peter  was 
never  to  tire  of,  in  all  the  years  he  would  pass  and 
repass  it,  and  he  sat  breathlessly  watching  it,  while 
David  at  his  side  dreamed  of  a  music  that  might 
compass  and  express  it. 


PETER   KINDRED  37 

Boston,  with  its  drift  of  faces,  its  narrow,  windy 
and  intriguing  alleys,  the  close  bustle  and  sense  of 
gathered  pleasance,  aroused  the  three  men  com 
ing  from  the  quiet  of  Cambridge,  to  a  feeling  of 
adventure  and  carousal.  They  strode  down  Tre- 
mont  Street  arm  in  arm,  turned  sharply  at  the 
Touraine,  struck  down  Essex  Street,  and  so  ar 
rived  at  Charlie  Wirth's. 

They  pushed  through  the  turning  doors,  and 
came  at  once  into  a  great  clatter  of  dishes,  a  gar 
gantuan  odor  of  cooking,  and  the  blue  smoke  of 
tobacco.  They  made  their  way  to  the  rear  of  the 
room,  sat  down  in  a  corner,  and  looked  about 
them.  A  waiter  came  and  smiled  at  them,  and 
presently  reappeared  with  three  seidels  of  foam 
ing  brown  Culmbacher,  dark,  gold  brown,  with  iri 
descent  gleams  in  it.  This  they  started  to  drink 
manfully ;  Jill  had  rather  a  delicate  way  of  drink 
ing  his  beer,  but  it  was  a  bit  incongruous  to  see 
him  smack  his  lips  after  it.  Peter,  drinking  on  an 
empty  and  unaccustomed  stomach,  presently  felt 
dizzy,  and  found  the  beer  bitter. 

''Here,"  Jill  said,  "is  the  life  of  the  student. 
To  work  and  dream  ...  to  feed  the  soul 
richly  .  .  ." 

"A  bit  barren,"  David  said  shortly. 

"It's  very  fine,"  Peter  said,  "but,  of  course, 
one  ought  to  do  something." 

"Do  you  believe  that,  too,"  Jill  asked  of  David. 

"I  certainly  do,"  David  answered.  "There's 
nothing  in  just  living  along." 


38  PETER    KINDRED 

Jill  sighed,  and  said: 

"Did  you  suggest  to  Kindred  that  he  become 
the  manager  of  something?" 

"No." 

"I  suggested  that  he  become  a  gentleman." 

"Hm,"  said  David  doubtfully,  and  then  was 
silent. 

Peter  turned  to  Jill.  "Don't  you  mean  by  gen 
tleman,  a  man  who  practises  a  fine  morality?" 

"Rather  a  man  with  a  proper  sense  of  beauty." 

"I'm  not  sure  of  that,"  Peter  said.  "I  rather 
fancy  the  morality." 

But  late  that  night  in  the  yellow  gleam  of 
Peter's  room  on  Holyoke  Street,  David  gave  judg 
ment. 

"Rather  an  ass,  I  think,"  he  said. 

"Well,"  Peter  answered,  "possibly  you're 
right." 

Within  a  fortnight  Peter  found  the  college  and 
the  Boston  press  considering  the  Princeton  game 
in  gathering  excitement,  and  he  himself  was 
aroused  at  the  prospect,  and  spent  a  great  deal  of 
time  discussing  the  matter  pro  and  con.  As  for 
the  college,  there  was  nothing  else  talked  of,  how 
Princeton  had  beaten  Vanderbilt  more  handily 
than  Harvard,  that  Briggs  of  Princeton,  and  Dil 
lon,  were  no  better  backs  than  Harvard  could 
boast,  perhaps,  but  that  Harvard  had  no  man  in 
the  backfield  to  compare  with  Durenbeck.  There 
was  a  great  deal  of  talk  of  Reilly,  and  a  general 


PETER   KINDRED  39 

cheerful  reliance  on  Haughton.  Through  it  all  was 
a  sense  of  holiday,  of  women  and  tea  parties,  of 
shiny  rooms  and  mothers  and  chaperons,  of  a 
common  weal,  and  a  common  hope.  Here  was  the 
youth  of  a  province  extending  a  guest  friendship 
to  the  youth  of  another  province,  a  time  of  fete, 
a  mingling  and  rivalry  of  colors,  of  songs,  of 
morals  and  traditions. 

The  football  men  were  hidden  from  the  public 
and  from  their  hiding  place  came  reports  of  this 
man  and  that  man.  As  at  school,  Peter  found 
himself  taking  satisfaction  and  pride  in  these 
men  who  were  no  more  than  names  to  him,  much 
as  though  he  were  their  chosen  companion,  as 
though  Devereaux's  big  shoulders  were  his  own, 
as  though  he  himself  boasted  of  Armstrong's  long 
spiral  punts.  In  a  sort  of  way  he  felt  himself 
pitted  against  Princeton,  and  became  obsessed 
with  the  desire  to  see  the  sturdy  Princeton  team 
thoroughly  beaten.  To  David  he  was  blasphemous 
in  his  desire,  but  David  was  as  stirred  as  he,  and 
together  they  invoked  untold  accidents  to  blight 
Dillon  and  Briggs  and  that  terrible  immortal  Dur- 
enbeck.  For  that  matter,  the  entire  Princeton 
team  appeared  to  Peter  in  a  mysterious  and  ro 
mantic  light,  like  warriors  of  fabled  prowess  from 
some  distant  and  unknown  land,  and  the  Harvard 
men  who  went  to  meet  them,  grown  suddenly 
warmly  intimate  to  his  life,  carried  with  them  his 
own  rivalry  and  battle  lust. 

The  day  of  the  game  was  flawless,  in  November, 


40  PETER    KINDRED 

and  Peter  awoke  to  the  smell  of  wood  fires,  cold 
bright  sunlight,  and  an  unwonted  sense  of  some 
thing  about  to  happen.  The  Yard,  the  Square, 
the  clubs  along  the  coast  were  decked  out  in  huge 
red  banners  with  the  black  football  H.  Men 
moved  through  the  streets  with  red  flowers  in 
their  buttonholes ;  big  machines  with  gray-furred 
women  folk,  flaunting  bits  of  color,  sped  up  and 
down  Mount  Auburn  Street  in  the  sun.  Mothers 
and  daughters  passed  below  his  window,  well  at 
tended,  carrying  rugs  and  coats.  A  group  of  alert 
Princeton  men,  with  slim,  dark  faces  over  big  yel 
low  flowers,  came  swaggering  down  Holyoke 
Street,  and  swung  south  toward  the  bridge.  A 
student  went  by  in  a  noisy  racing  car,  a  pert 
maiden  rolled  up  in  a  rug  at  his  side,  and  other 
cars  followed  him,  some  trailing  banners  of  orange 
and  black.  David  came  racing  over,  excitement 
shining  in  his  face,  and  together  he  and  Peter 
snatched  a  bite  of  lunch,  and  started  off  for  the 
field. 

Boylston  Street  to  the  bridge  was  full  to  over 
flowing  with  a  slow-moving  tide  of  motors  and 
people.  Colors  caught  the  sun,  and  danced,  blue, 
red,  yellow  and  green.  Bright-eyed  maidens 
laughed  over  their  furs ;  motors  crawled  by  in  the 
surge  of  folk,  making  a  great  clamor  of  horns. 
Men  of  all  ages  moved  forward  together,  holding 
the  arms  of  their  women,  old  and  young,  laughing 
and  quiet,  with  rugs  and  waving  banners.  Far 
ahead,  across  the  bridge,  the  tide  turned  toward 


PETER   KINDRED  41 

the  sprawling  Stadinm,  into  the  narrow  gate  to 
Soldiers'  Field,  scattered  across  the  grass,  and 
hummed  up  into  the  bleached  white,  circling  tiers 
of  seats.  David  and  Peter,  finding  their  places, 
drew  their  coats  about  them  and  looked  curiously 
around. 

Opposite,  across  the  green  gridiron  with  its  reg 
ular  white  lines,  flared  the  orange  of  Nassau.    At 
the  base  of  the  stand  three  cheer  leaders  in  black 
sweaters  waved  their  arms  and  sprang  into  the 
air,  and  the  Princeton  cheer,  insurgent  and  mena 
cing,  snapped  back  and  rolled  across  the  field.    A 
few  unhurried  figures  moved  about  on  the  grass 
below;  the  stands  were  nearly  full,  murmuring 
and    stirring,    expectant,    and    along   the    whole 
circle    color   bobbed   and   nodded    and   gleamed 
through    umber    shadows    and    yellow,    slanting 
bands  of  sunlight.    Over  it  all  stretched  the  wide, 
deep,  and  tranquil  sky,  with  white  clouds  low  in 
the  east,  far  off,  above  the  faint  roof  tops  of  Bos 
ton.    The  Princeton  section  rose  to  its  feet  with 
a  noise  of  myriad  dry  leaves,  and  after  some  pre 
liminary  humming,  launched  into  a  melody.    The 
sound  floated  in  the  bowl  of  the  great  Stadium, 
and  died  away,  hoarse  and  mellow;  there  was  a 
prolonged  clapping  of  hands.    Across  the  field  a 
fair-haired  man  in  a  black  sweater  walked  down 
the  side  lines,  looking  up  at  the  stands,  exhorting 
them  to  something.    The  Harvard  team  ran  across 
the   green   below,   Reilly   at  the   head,   a    solid 
phalanx  of  black,  with  trailing  and  fluttering  red 


42  PETER    KINDRED 

blankets;  the  stands  rose  and  thundered;  and 
Peter's  anxious  heart  grew  warm  and  big,  and  he 
took  a  deep  breath.  David  gripped  his  arm,  and 
they  stood  there,  staring  down  at  Harvard  to 
gether,  at  the  embodiment  of  their  own  manhood 
and  their  own  faith.  They  stood  so  until  the 
stands  had  rustled  down  again,  and  then  they  sat 
down  as  well,  in  a  tense  silence,  waiting  for  the 
opening  whistle. 

But  is  it  all  no  more  than  a  fierce  loyalty  to 
intimate  things?  And  for  those  older  men,  whose 
college  days  have  been  a  memory  a  long  while,  is 
it  no  more  than  a  resurgent  battle  lust?  I  think 
it  is  something  greater ;  I  think  it  is  an  expression 
of  faith  to  the  young,  an  articulation:  "This  is 
my  faith,  these  are  my  people,  my  ideals,  my  pur 
poses;  they  are  worth  fighting  for."  And  to  the 
elders,  is  it  not  a  rejuvenation  of  belief,  a  fresh 
ening  of  faded  dream  and  old  pride,  a  rising  to 
the  ancient  and  forgotten  toast? 

Late  that  afternoon,  when  Harvard  crept  to 
defeat  through  the  raw  dusk,  Peter  and  David 
sat  bowed  and  chill  in  their  seats,  weary  and 
tragic,  but  undaunted,  cheering  and  singing  with 
hoarse  and  unrecognizable  voices.  Silently  they 
made  their  way  at  the  end  across  the  misty  grass, 
and  plodded  home  through  the  evening,  stretching 
their  cramped  and  stiffened  muscles,  silent  until 
they  sat  at  last  before  the  grate  fire  in  David's 
room,  feeling  the  drowsy  warmth  obliterate  all 
but  an  insistent  sense  of  catastrophe. 


PETER   KINDRED  43 

There  followed  days  of  anxiety  and  puzzlement, 
of  grave  consideration  of  past  scores,  and  uneasy 
prophesying.  Breaking  in  upon  them  came  the 
shock  of  Princeton's  defeat  of  Yale,  and  after, 
the  stir  of  final  preparation  for  New  Haven. 

Peter  and  David,  having  no  means  of  getting 
there,  waited  in  Boston.  They  learned  of  Har 
vard's  victory  with  a  curiously  deep  satisfaction, 
as  though  they  themselves  had  been  justified  in 
something,  and  with  a  lifting  sense  of  the  lordli 
ness  of  Boston,  of  Harvard,  and  of  themselves. 
They  celebrated  the  evening  at  Wirth's,  and,  feel 
ing  in  no  mood  for  the  deserted  streets  of  Cam 
bridge,  drifted  into  a  movie  afterward,  jubilant. 

Far  to  the  south  Harvard  men  caroused  through 
the  amused  restaurants  and  theaters  of  New  York, 
busying  themselves  with  their  youth  and  with  their 
victory. 

The  next  morning  lectures  swung  sharply  into 
stride,  and  Harvard,  sober  and  forgetful,  settled 
down  to  work. 

Afterward  came  the  bleak  season  of  the  year; 
the  air  grew  colder  and  began  to  rumor  of  snow, 
evening  crept  into  afternoon,  night  at  its  heels, 
the  sky  grayed  and  the  water  darkened.  Earth 
grew  bare  and  sharp,  November  slipped  through 
the  profound,  chilled  quiet  of  Thanksgiving  Day 
into  December,  and  the  Christmas  holidays  drew 
close. 

Peter  was  in  high  spirits  at  the  thought  of  home, 


44  PETER    KINDRED 

as  was  David,  bnt  David  was  the  more  anxious 
to  be  at  home,  for  Peter,  after  the  first  day  spent 
with  his  family,  would  think  only  of  escape  again. 

New  York  in  the  early  morning  smelled  re 
motely  of  the  sea,  but  there  was  not  the  difference 
to  Peter  there  used  to  be  when  he  came  down  from 
Exeter.  In  the  Boston  air  there  was  the  sea,  but 
there  were  also  houses  and  the  smoke  of  trains, 
and  open  spaces,  and  the  surrounding  farms  and 
countryside.  In  New  York,  however,  there  was 
the  bitter  bright  smell  of  stale  things,  and  a  wind 
out  of  blue  shadowed  street  bottoms. 

The  Kindred  family  was  asleep  when  Peter 
crept  into  the  flat,  but  his  sister  awoke,  and  slip 
ping  into  a  kimona  stood  in  her  doorway  smiling 
sleepily,  her  short  brown  hair  in  disorder,  her  face 
wrinkled  with  sleep  and  with  the  pillow.  Peter 
kissed  her  and  she  surveyed  him  with  interest. 
He  went  into  his  room  with  a  stealthy  joy,  a  cast 
ing  aside  of  burdens  and  responsibilities,  assum 
ing  the  easy  throne  arranged  for  him.  The  maid 
moved  through  the  kitchen,  his  parents  awoke,  and 
the  day  started.  His  mother  called  him  in  to  her, 
and  with  his  face  between  her  hands,  bewailed  his 
thinness,  and  foretold  the  immediate  washing  of 
his  hair,  while  his  father  smiled  at  him  from  the 
doorway,  eagerly  and  a  bit  wistfully,  Peter 
thought.  He  was  indeed  welcome  home,  and  it 
was  with  a  very  grateful  sense  of  it  that  Peter, 
albeit  uneasy  at  his  mother's  prophesy,  went  into 
the  small,  warm  dining  room  and  ate  his  break- 


PETER   KINDRED  45 

fast,  pouring  a  great  deal  of  cream  on  his  oatmeal, 
and  pressing  large  slices  of  butter  on  his  toast. 

But  by  the  next  day's  noon  he  had  wearied  of 
his  kingdom,  the  narrow  lamp-lit  hall  of  the  flat, 
the  small  rooms,  the  sour  and  brown*  odor  of  all 
the  other  kitchens  in  the  house  drifting  vaguely 
about  his  own  demesne,  and  lying  stubbornly  in 
wait  outside.  The  red  and  soiled  gray  walls  that 
peered  in  at  his  windows  made  him  impatient  as 
they  always  did,  and  in  the  narrow  and  noisy 
streets  he  found  no  solace,  and  the  insolent  roof 
tops  above  his  head  depressed  him.  He  began  to 
think  again  of  his  sunny  room  at  college,  the 
movement  of  feet  up  and  down  below  his  window, 
the  dark  river  and  the  barren  trees.  In  that  mood 
he  wrote  a  letter  to  David. 

"The  family/'  he  wrote,  "are  so  contented  and 
happy,  David,  that  I  can  hardly  understand  my 
own  impatience.  But  sometimes  I  wonder  if  it  is 
content,  or  just  a  will  to  make  the  best  of  things. 
Their  lives  seem  to  be  nothing  but  a  succession  of 
the  most  trivial  happenings,  and  I  think  it  hurts 
father  that  I  can't  take  the  interest  in  such  little 
things  that  he  does.  For  instance,  he  wants  me 
to  go  with  him  to  a  lecture  on  India,  somebody's 
personal  travels,  I  believe,  and  then  he  must  know 
about  my  courses,  and  your  courses,  and  there  is 
no  end  of  gossip,  mostly  of  bridge  parties.  They 
make  me  feel  as  though  they  were  getting  no 
where,  just  growing  old.  Edith  had  a  tea  in  my 
honor,  and  her  friends  are  no  different  than  ever; 


46  PETER    KINDRED 

some  of  them  are  rather  pretty,  and  they  all  laugh 
all  the  time,  and  talk  about  nothing  but  people.  I 
wonder  if  a  man  could  fall  in  love  with  such  a 
woman.  I  wonder  if  I  could.  It  would  certainly 
be  an  awfully  silly  thing  to  do,  wouldn  't  it  ? ' ' 

David  sent  back  a  long  letter,  but  light-hearted. 

"It  wouldn't  be  as  silly  as  you  think  to  fall  in 
love,  old  anchorite, "  he  wrote.  "And  I  dare  you 
to  kiss  one  of  those  laughing  girls.  But  if  you  do, 
by  all  holy  things,  write  me  about  it  at  once,  and 
I'll  keep  your  letter  as  a  human  document.  .  .  ." 

David's  letter  lightened  the  drag  of  the  holiday 
week,  and  with  the  Christmas  fragrance  of  fir 
trees  in  New  York,  Peter  roused  himself  and  con 
sidered  kissing  someone.  But  he  saw  no  way  of 
doing  it,  although  he  picked  out  one  of  his  sister's 
friends  as  an  agreeable  choice,  and  almost  imag 
ined  himself  falling  in  love  with  her.  January 
and  college  again  tore  him  somewhat  rudely  from 
Eros,  however,  and  after  he  had  held  the  young 
lady's  hand  an  awkward  moment  or  two  over 
time,  and  had  murmured  something  inadequate 
about  writing,  he  started  to  forget  her,  and  did 
forget  all  about  her  even  before  his  only  letter  to 
her  had  been  answered. 

Snow  fell  over  Boston,  muffling  the  sharp  lines 
of  the  landscape  in  amazing  white,  blanketing  life 
in  upon  itself  and  huddling  the  countryside.  In 
the  streets,  tiny  muckers  threw  snowballs  at  one 
another,  at  students  and  professors,  at  white- 
hooded  trolley  cars  and  lumbering  coal  wagons. 


PETER    KINDRED  47 

The  sun  on  the  snow  dazzled,  and  from  the  drip 
ping  roofs  snow  avalanches  plumped  into  the 
drifts  along  the  gutters,  with  mock  thundering. 
Over  night  the  earth  was  whitened  until  it  spar 
kled  and  glistened  in  the  sun,  and  the  air  was 
buoyant  and  snowy.  Men  tramped  through  the 
streets  in  high  goloshes  that  flapped  about  their 
shins  and  jingled  as  they  walked,  and  sleighbells 
chimed  on  Mount  Auburn  Street.  The  college 
was  at  once  very  cheerful,  and  Peter,  returning, 
went  in  search  of  David. 

But  Peter  found  Wiener  in  David's  room,  and 
that  chilled  him,  and  gave  the  wrong  flavor  to  his 
return.  And  David,  he  thought  .  .  .  there  was 
something  wrong  with  David. 

"It's  the  damnable  class  consciousness  of  every 
body,  "  David  said,  at  one  time. 

"I  know  it's  undemocratic,"  Peter  answered, 
"of  course  .  .  .  And  yet,  I  find  a  lot  more  satis 
faction  in  looking  out  of  my  window  at  the  tall 
snobs  as  they  go  by,  than  in  waving  to  a  dozen 
...  a  dozen  Wieners." 

But  David  very  sensibly  thought  Peter  a  snob, 
and  unkind,  besides,  all  of  which  I  dare  say  he 
was,  and  so  David  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
Peter  for  a  week,  an  occasion  which  Peter  took 
sadly,  but  refused  to  apologize.  Perhaps  he  was 
a  little  jealous  of  Wiener.  .  .  . 

Again  Peter  grew  lonely,  but  not  as  he  had  been 
at  Exeter,  for  his  loneliness  was  mixed  with  im 
patience,  and  yet  with  a  sense  of  development.  He 


48  PETER    KINDRED 

read  eagerly.  Early  in  his  second  term  he  was 
introduced  to  the  great  Russians,  and  brought  his 
startled  views  to  Frank. 

"Look  here,"  he  said,  "these  folk  are  no  more 
satisfied  than  I  am.  I  thought  everyone  was  satis 
fied  when  he  grew  up.  But  it  doesn't  seem  as 
though  they  ever  find  an  answer  to  anything. 
They  just  poke  around." 

He  drew  his  knees  up  and  laced  his  fingers  about 
his  shins. 

"It's  a  rum  sort  of  uneasiness,"  he  said, 
"this  will  to  be  square  with  life — doing  the  right 
thing — the  big  thing.  It's  easy  to  get  up  and 
howl  for  the  poor,  I  guess  .  .  .  like  Wiener,"  he 
thought  to  himself.  .  .  .  "Only  there's  not  much 
sense  in  that.  There's  something  bigger  some 
where  .  .  .  something  to  get  down  deep  .  .  . 
some  wise,  impersonal  thing  ...  to  settle  every 
thing,  and  keep  it  settled.  Keep  it  settled  defi 
nitely." 

"Yes,"  said  Frank,  "and  then  I  shall  sleep  like 
a  good  one,  instead  of  lying  awake  at  night  both 
ering  about  things  that  are  none  of  my  bloody 
business." 

In  February  Cambridge  was  pelted  with  hail  in 
fine,  stinging  particles,  or  whipped  with  the  gale, 
or  drenched  in  sleet,  and  at  last  after  a  long  week 
of  gray  weather,  Peter,  fairly  lonely  and  a  bit 
restless,  found  refuge  in  the  warm  oblivion  of 
the  Boston  movies,  where  for  very  little  of  his 


PETER   KINDRED  49 

sparse  allowance  he  could  bny,  in  darkness  stirred 
with  music,  a  sort  of  trance,  a  cessation  of  his 
own  breathing,  living  and  moving,  and  a  projec 
tion  into  the  untroubled  if  erratic  lives  of  heroes 
and  heroines.  David  considered  it  a  waste  of 
time,  but  Frank  went  with  him  once,  and  became 
so  boisterously  critical  of  the  sentimental  clap 
trap,  and  so  loud  in  his  undisguised  remarks  that 
Peter,  embarrassed  and  notorious,  was  glad  to 
escape.  Thereafter  he  went  alone,  and  since  he 
had,  therefore,  no  one  with  him  to  whom  he  felt 
an  apology  was  due  for  the  screen  nonsense,  he 
did  not  mind  it  at  all. 

For  the  actors  before  the  screen,  with  very  few 
exceptions,  he  felt  a  sort  of  humorous  contempt, 
mostly  by  reason  of  their  strange  and  nai've  views 
of  society.  The  women,  upon  the  other  hand,  ap 
peared  to  him  erotic  and  romantic.  In  them  he 
saw  beauty  and  mystery  and  sex.  They  disquieted 
him  in  a  gentle  way,  and  haunted  his  waking 
dreams  with  suggestion.  It  was  not  that  he  fell 
at  all  in  love  with  any  one,  but  that  he  was  in 
trigued  by  woman,  by  romance,  by  kisses  and  love 
making,  and  all  the  subtle  hidden  lines  of  bodies. 
These  women  made  the  streets  at  evening  adven 
turous  for  Peter,  and  all  in  all,  he  gave  more 
thought  to  them  than  was  good  for  him.  But  I 
doubt  that  he  would  have  played  at  more  than 
a  courtly  and  melancholy  wooing  with  any  of 
them,  a  discreet  sighing,  and  quite  a  sexless  pos 
session. 


50  PETER    KINDRED 

The  winter  grew  feeble  and  soiled,  full  of  senile 
humor,  beckoning  folk  out  of  doors  with  beaming 
sun  and  cloudless  skies,  only  to  freeze  them  to 
their  marrows,  and  blow  tears  into  their  eyes.  At 
the  close  of  such  a  day  Peter  came  into  Jill's  room, 
and  found  him  in  the  uncertain  firelight  that  fled 
about  among  his  hangings  and  burned  and  paled 
across  the  bronze  gods  and  the  brass  gods  of 
his  room.  Jill,  by  the  fire,  motioned  him  ab 
sently  to  a  chair,  and  continued  to  read  from 
a  slim  book,  as  though  he  were  quite  unaware 
of  Peter. 

" Baudelaire,"  he  said  at  last,  and  sighed. 

Peter  wondered  who  Baudelaire  might  be,  and 
said  nothing.  Jill  held  out  the  book  to  him. 

"Look,"  he  said,  "you  can't  make  it  out  very 
well,  but  it's  rather  a  wonderful  binding.  I  had 
it  done  in  Edinburgh.  The  main  thing  is  the  color 
.  .  .  you  can't  see  it  in  this  light.  It's  a  sort  of 
beige,  and  matches  a  tie  I  had  and  was  rather 
crazy  about  .  .  .  It's  quite  lovely." 

Again  Peter  could  find  nothing  to  say.  The 
room  was  spiced  with  burning  joss,  hidden  away 
from  Cambridge,  in  stillness.  Jill  read  in  a  low 
whisper,  and  Peter  sat  silently  listening. 

"Of  course  it  loses  in  translation,"  Jill  said. 

"It's  rather  sleepy,  isn't  it?"  Peter  said  awk 
wardly. 

Jill  stared  at  him  and  Peter  moved  uncomfort 
ably. 

"Rather  wailing,  I  mean,"  he  said. 


PETER    KINDRED  51 

"Dear  me,"  Jill  remarked,  and  Peter  made 
haste  to  justify  himself. 

"It's  not  very  real  ...  as  though  the  man  were 
trying  awfully  hard  to  be  that  sort  of  thing  .  .  . 
or  the  woman.  And  then  when  he  is  ...  or  she 
.  .  .  why,  he  might  just  as  well  not  be.  I  mean  . . . 
do  you  really  like  it?" 

"I  say,"  Jill  drawled  slowly,  "you  are  an  ig 
norant  little  creature,  aren't  you?" 

He  spoke  without  malice,  and  went  back  to  his 
reading,  but  an  embarrassed  Peter  got  up  and 
went  out  quietly.  In  the  street  he  took  a  deep 
breath,  and  went  home. 

"Frank,"  he  said  to  him  that  night,  "who  was 
Baudelaire?" 

And  later,  "Do  you  think  that  sort  of  thing  is 
important,  Frank?" 

But  to  himself  he  said,  "What  is  important?" 

He  could  not  answer  that.  Yet  it  seemed  to 
him  very  definitely  that  it  was  not  important  to 
care  so  much  for  the  cover  of  a  book.  He  ended 
by  growing  fairly  angry  about  it. 


CHAPTER  HI 

TN  JULY  the  Kindreds  went  to  Europe,  taking 
-••  Peter  with  them.  It  was  a  dream  long  cher 
ished  by  his  mother,  one  not  lightly  realized, 
either,  but  they  had  been  saving  for  it  many  years, 
and  when  Peter  won  a  small  scholarship,  Mr. 
Kindred  asked  for  and  was  given  his  first  long 
vacation.  They  travelled  in  the  smallest  cabins 
of  the  first  class,  ostensibly  ashamed  of  their  ex 
travagance,  secretly  enthralled.  Peter  was  un 
interested  in  Europe,  but  excited  at  the  planning, 
the  packing,  the  bustling  about  and  the  radiant 
anticipation  of  his  parents  and  Edith.  The  wharf 
and  the  high  bulking  steamer,  the  solemn  leave- 
taking  all  around  him,  the  smell  of  tarred  rigging, 
of  the  windy  decks  and  the  salt  sea,  the  sombre 
notes  of  the  fog  horn  sounding  high  overhead, 
thrilled  him  with  a  sense  of  adventure,  so  that  he 
felt  fairly  sentimental,  looking  back  at  the  dwin 
dling  wharf,  and  waved  his  handkerchief  with  the 
rest  of  them  at  what  of  a  sudden  he  felt  to  be  his 
home-land. 

In  the  deep  center  of  the  ship  his  family  were 


PETER   KINDRED  53 

unpacking  in  their  tiny  cabins,  bubbling  with 
laughter  and  energy,  opening  gifts  of  fruits  and 
books,  scribbling  hurried  postals  for  the  pilot  to 
take  back  with  him.  Edith  awkwardly  held  a 
newly  opened  letter  close  to  what  she  took  to  be 
her  heart,  and  managed  to  laugh  and  cry  after  a 
maidenly  fashion.  Peter,  leaning  against  the  rail 
of  an  upper  deck,  the  wind  from  the  open  sea  blow 
ing  on  his  face,  watched  the  patient  Statue  of  Lib 
erty  go  by,  a  dull  and  forgotten  tower  on  a  back 
ground  of  barges,  ferryboats  and  distant  fac 
tories.  The  wind  from  the  Narrows  was  rumor- 
ous,  the  scene  about  him  drab,  save  for  occasional 
rusty  ships,  tramps  and  schooners,  lumbering 
in  from  the  wide  sea,  or  lying  sleepily  at  anchor. 
Before  him  was  Europe,  beyond  many  horizons. 
For  two  weeks  he  was  to  be  a  member  of  a  small 
community;  the  thought  stirred  him  to  wonder 
what  company  the  ship  might  hold,  until  he  found 
the  deck  chilly  at  last,  and  climbed  down  the  com- 
panionway.  Inside  the  ship  he  heard  the  steady 
and  muffled  rhythm  of  engines,  and  felt  the  slight 
shuddering  of  the  vessel's  progress.  White- 
coated  stewards  padded  to  and  fro  along  dimly 
lighted  corridors,  but  for  the  most  part  the  ship 
was  quiet.  Down  and  still  farther  down  he  went, 
and  found  his  own  cabin,  and  Edith  in  it,  a  crum 
pled  letter  in  her  hand,  and  her  eyes  wet.  He 
gazed  at  her  with  profound  displeasure. 

At  noon  he  looked  curiously  about  the  dining 
room,  but  saw  no  people  to  interest  him.    There 


54  PETER    KINDRED 

were  either  such  families  as  his,  with  younger 
Ediths  and  Peters,  or  older  and  detached  folk  in 
tent  upon  themselves.  Peter,  thinking  of  nothing 
better  to  do,  ordered  a  great  deal,  and  ate  it  with 
a  fine  sense  of  luxury.  Then  he  went  indolently 
to  his  deck  chair  with  a  book,  and  wrapped  a  rug 
about  his  feet.  By  tea  time  he  was  seasick. 

He  was  seasick  two  nights  and  one  day,  and  his 
misery  might  be  measured  by  his  sitting  wretched 
and  unshaven  in  his  deck  chair,  a  woeful  and  dis 
couraging  sight,  and  caring  not  a  fig  that  the 
whole  world  saw  him  so.  But  on  the  morning  of 
the  third  day  he  awoke  hungry  and  hollow,  and 
after  fortifying  himself  with  strong  coffee,  strode 
briskly  out  of  doors  and  took  his  place  with 
seamen. 

There  was  nothing  to  do  but  read  and  lie  in  the 
sun ;  ocean  and  sky  combined  to  give  him  over  to 
dreaming,  of  nothing  in  particular,  often  of  noth 
ing  but  the  warm  content  of  his  body.  He  was  sur 
prised  at  the  interest  intelligent-looking  men  took 
in  his  sister,  and  watched  her  with  them,  but  could 
find  no  new  attractiveness  about  her,  and  was 
rather  inclined  to  consider  her  perfidious,  remem 
bering  the  unpleasant  sight  he  had  witnessed  in 
the  cabin.  But  Peter  is  not  to  be  blamed,  for  the 
growth  of  a  sister  is  an  amazing  thing ;  for  a  long 
while  she  will  be  an  awkward  hoyden,  scornful  of 
everything  but  games,  and  then  all  at  once,  Pouf, 
she  is  a  grown  woman  with  tastes  and  hidden 
cavaliers  and  long  experience  in  love. 


PETER    KINDRED  55 

But  Peter  did  not  know  that  such  was  the  way 
of  all  sisters,  and  thought  Edith  a  wretch.  He 
was  preparing  to  lay  the  case  before  his  mother, 
and  demand  a  show  of  maternal  authority,  when 
he  fell  of  a  sudden  in  love  himself,  or  very  like  it, 
with  a  slim,  tawny-haired  woman  whom  he 
glimpsed  across  the  dining  hall,  and  who  passed 
his  chair  with  long  strides,  on  solitary  walks  about 
the  deck.  Peter,  watching  her,  was  aware  of  a 
growing  feeling  of  breathlessness  as  though  where 
his  insides  had  been  there  were  a  flocculent  pre 
cipitate  ;  thereby  he  knew  that  he  was  in  love,  and 
took  at  last  to  striding  the  deck  as  well,  alternately 
audacious  and  faint,  wondering  why  no  one  else 
hunted  her,  despairing  of  ever  meeting  her.  He 
could  not  help  fearing  that  his  suit  was  overbold, 
yet  followed  her  none  the  less  resolutely,  until 
she  did  speak  to  him  at  last,  and  walked  with  him, 
too,  for  a  full  morning. 

Then  began  a  wooing,  shy  and  enraptured  on 
Peter's  side,  half  amused  and  wilful  on  hers.  But 
that  it  was  a  wooing  sufficed  for  Peter.  Familiar 
things  blossomed  into  all  manner  of  significance: 
the  play  of  dolphins,  as  the  two  stood  facing  the 
gale  singing  over  the  bows,  with  the  sun  pour 
ing  down  on  the  sea;  the  calm  windless  corners 
of  the  ship  where  they  sat  close  together  and 
spoke  in  low  voices  of  themselves;  the  hushed 
halls  and  rooms  below  stairs  where  he  sought  for 
her  face  among  people,  with  a  strange  excitement 
in  his  body.  He  swung  with  her  around  the  cir- 


56  PETER    KINDRED 

cuit  of  the  decks,  arm  in  arm,  and  thrilled  at  the 
soft  press  of  her  coat.  An  enchantment  bewil 
dered  his  life,  nntil  he  was  hardly  conscious  of 
the  days  and  nights,  and  the  ocean  below  and  the 
sky  above  were  like  the  background  of  an  orches 
tra  to  a  pantomime.  And  the  woman!  Who  shall 
sayf 

But  this  much  is  so,  that  upon  a  night  of  danc 
ing,  with  music  coming  faintly  from  the  prome 
nade,  they  climbed  together  to  the  hurricane  deck, 
and  stood  side  by  side,  facing  the  low  golden 
moon,  and  the  windy  sweep  of  stars  over  the  dark 
night  sky.  The  water  gleamed  gold  and  was  lost 
below  them ;  and  the  fragrance  of  the  woman  stole 
through  the  wind  and  was  one  with  the  night. 
The  ship  pulsed  on  through  the  darkness,  rising 
and  falling  in  a  faint  crashing  of  white  foam. 
And  there,  upon  a  peak  above  the  level  plain  of 
the  world,  with  only  the  black  rigging  sounding 
above  them,  Peter  kissed  the  woman,  and  she 
clung  to  him.  They  stumbled  down  the  compan- 
ionway  at  last,  in  a  dream,  and  in  a  shadow  they 
kissed  each  other  good  night.  Until  dawn  Peter 
sat  gazing  across  the  seas  with  wide  and  unseeing 
eyes,  staring  at  the  wonder  and  the  profound 
beauty  of  life.  At  daybreak  he  crept  to  his  berth 
above  his  long  slumbering  father,  and  when  he 
awoke  late  the  next  morning,  the  dim-lying  coast' 
of  Portugal  was  looming  on  the  horizon,  and  the 
ship  rising  to  a  running  sea. 

The  woman  he  saw  again  across  the  vista  of 


PETER   KINDRED  57 

breakfast  tables,  and  his  heart  leaped  at  the  ap 
peal  in  her  eyes.  And  that  was  all,  for  she  did  not 
come  on  deck  that  day,  and  when  they  dropped 
anchor  in  the  qniet  bay  at  Gibraltar,  with  the  dark 
rock  looming  sternly  through  the  dusk  beyond  the 
fleet  of  fisher  boats,  she  left  the  steamer,  and  Peter 
never  saw  her  again. 

But  it  was  she  who  gave  Peter  a  meaning  in 
Europe,  filling  it  for  him  with  the  past,  with  ro 
mance  and  chivalry,  heroes  and  troubadours,  giv 
ing  life  to  legends  and  ballades,  haunting  the 
silent  Mediterranean,  the  gaunt  and  sombre  coast 
of  Spain,  and  all  the  towns  of  Italy  and  France. 
Peter  would  not  go  with  his  family  through  the 
churches  and  museums,  but  wandered  among  the 
streets,  dreaming  of  the  woman,  imagining  her 
with  him,  making  of  Europe,  indeed,  little  more 
than  a  setting  for  this  newly  awakened  life  in 
him,  that  bade  fair  to  lull  his  student  life  entirely 
asleep. 

David  was  quick  to  sense  the  change,  and  wrote 
him  a  long  letter. 

"I  know,  Peter,"  he  wrote,  "how  fair  your 
lady  must  have  been.  I  have  been  devoured  with 
the  curse  of  the  black  god,  sitting  beneath  tall 
pines  and  coming  nowhere,  writing  the  most  un 
satisfactory  music,  wondering,  wondering,  among 
these  mountains,  and  biting  at  the  very  futility 
of  myself,  while  you  go  wandering  through  old 
cities.  But  you  must  certainly  include  the 
churches,  Peter." 


58  PETER    KINDRED 

Peter  wrote  back  from  Interlaken  whimsically. 

"My  progress  is  far  from  romantic,  musician. 
I  rather  imagine  that  your  days  are  more  so,  in 
the  dark  pines.  We  travel  as  cheaply  as  we  can, 
of  course,  and  there 's  the  devil's  own  bother 
about  it.  Father  argues  a  great  deal  with  por 
ters  and  guards,  and  though  they  never  under 
stand  him,  it  gives  him  a  tremendous  satisfaction, 
and  he  looks  splendid,  fairly  beaming.  Mother 
takes  a  sort  of  pride  in  him,  and  settles  back  com 
placently  when  he  starts  in.  But  somehow  the 
sandwiches  and  the  oranges,  and  the  bustle  and 
the  curiosity  spoil  the  landscapes,  although  I  know 
I'm  an  ungrateful  cub  to  say  it.  I  should  like  to 
go  through  Europe  as  the  hero  of  an  adventure, 
to  meet  the  woman  at  the  other  end  of  it,  not  this 
way.  Father's  little  battles  and  victories  smack 
of  the  tourist.  But  I'm  fearfully  afraid  to  let  him 
see  that,  for  it's  his  one  vacation,  and  God  knows 
he  deserves  it.  Mother  is  as  curious  as  a  child, 
while  I  think  that  Edith  peoples  Europe  with 
counts  and  marquises." 

Peter  liked  best  to  be  alone;  he  thought  to 
see  the  tawny  woman  come  down  every  street 
to  meet  him,  although  she  never  came,  and  he 
knew  that  she  would  not.  But  to  be  with  peo 
ple  broke  the  spell ;  he  was  no  hero,  save  when  he 
was  alone.  With  his  family  about  him  he  was  a 
young  nobody,  but  if  he  stole  off  by  himself,  and  if 
it  was  evening  in  Italy,  or  dusk  in  France,  why, 
he  was  a  very  different  person,  at  peace  with  the 


PETER    KINDRED  59 

serene  country,  at  one  with  the  people,  his  heart 
deep  among  the  loves  of  the  dead  nobles,  his  ears 
tuned  to  the  footsteps  of  a  wraith,  his  one  love. 
So  he  travelled  through  the  mountain  towns  of 
Italy,  in  a  sort  of  melancholy  exultation,  his  body 
crying  out  for  her,  yet  resigned  to  her  loss. 
Through  Italy,  France,  and  Switzerland,  tranced 
and  saddened,  yet  well  content,  as  much  by  him 
self  as  he  could  be,  doing  nothing,  thinking  of 
nothing  more.  His  father  and  mother  thought 
him  ridiculous,  as  no  doubt  he  was,  but  his  mother, 
unlike  her  husband,  felt  that  she  did  not  quite 
understand  Peter,  and  that  it  might  be  best  to 
let  him  be.  But  when  he  flatly  refused  to  climb 
the  Jungfrau  with  them  in  a  funicular,  she  very 
nearly  lost  her  patience. 

As  for  Peter,  the  distant  huge  mountain  crowd 
ing  the  sky  even  far  as  it  was,  sheer  white  against 
the  clear  blue,  mysteriously  shadowed  and  still, 
he  felt  would  not  brook  his  clumsy  interference. 
To  travel  upon  its  face,  laughing  and  impudent, 
would  not  only  have  been  ribald,  but  it  would  have 
shattered  its  glory  as  well,  and  Peter  was  jealous 
of  the  glory  of  Europe,  invested  as  it  was  with 
the  curiously  distant  tale  of  a  man,  Peter,  and  a 
woman,  together  upon  the  topmost  deck  of  a  ship. 

From  Switzerland  the  Kindreds  went  directly 
to  Paris  and  lodged  in  a  small  hotel  off  the 
Champs  Elysees,  fragrant  with  faded  things. 
There  was  instituted  a  week  spent  bravely  among 
the  shops,  while  Peter  and  his  father  discovered, 


60  PETER    KINDRED 

the  one,  Paris,  and  the  other,  the  museums,  pal 
aces  and  galleries.    Peter  went  perforce  to  Ver 
sailles,  but  through  no  desire  to  see  it.     He  ex 
plored  the  boulevards  as  he  would  have  explored 
a  new  land,  adventurously,  intent  upon  the  people, 
sitting  now  and  then  at  some  small  round  table 
before   a  cafe,   sipping  grenadine   or  chocolate, 
rambling  aimlessly  among  the  streets,  staring  into 
shop  windows,  and  into  the  faces  of  women  as 
they  passed.    He  spent  some  time  among  the  book 
stalls  along  the  Seine,  buying  nothing,  but  watch 
ing  the  gray  river  and  the  gray  city  across  from 
him,  feeling  the  undercurrent  of  kindly  life  in  the 
voices,  the  noises,  the  hushes  of  the  streets.    It 
was  a  city  old  with  content.    At  night  when  the 
boulevards  broke  into  a  foam  of  light,  Paris  drew 
him  willy  nilly  out  of  his  hotel,  to  the  despair  and 
terror  of  his  mother,  to  wander  among  crowds, 
alert  and  inquisitive.     The  low  laughter  of  the 
folk,  the  passion  and  the  wickedness,  nai've  and 
light-hearted  and  caressing,  unlike  the  shrill  night 
life  of  America,  aroused  in  him  the  desire  to  be 
come  a  part  of  it,  and  on  such  occasions  he  very 
nearly  forgot  his  own  love,  and  half  hungered  to 
be  joyously  bad,  and  to  delve  into  lewd  fable. 
But  there  was  nothing  about  Peter  to  attract  the 
women  of  the  streets,  for  he  was  brown  as  any 
Norman,  and  had  at  most  only  a  meager  handful 
of  small  coins  to  jingle.    Often  at  night  he  drove 
home  through  a  dark,  whispering  Paris,  peering 
up  at  the  shuttered  houses  from  his  fiacre,  won- 


PETER    KINDRED  61 

dering  what  tales  they  guarded,  of  what  lovers 
and  husbands  and  mistresses.  There  was  a  spice 
of  leaves  and  old  trees  through  all  Paris,  of  flow 
ers  growing,  and  a  faint  fragrance,  as  though  the 
city  herself  were  feminine,  and  the  streets  were 
women. 

In  the  yellow  morning  sunlight  the  shadow-dap 
pled  avenues  drew  Peter  out  again.  For  what 
countess  might  not  run  plump  into  his  arms  I  And 
even  the  tawny  woman  herself  might  come  walk 
ing  to  meet  him.  Yet  he  fell  in  with  no  happening 
at  all,  but  watched  the  children  roll  their  hoops 
in  the  Bois,  and  stood  in  a  dream  before  the  pon 
derous  iron  gates  of  palaces  that  had  housed  the 
great  nobles. 

For  all  the  dreaming,  there  was  stirring  in  him 
the  old  unrest.  Peter  had  almost  had  his  fill  of 
romance,  and  his  drugged  spirit  was  beginning  to 
assert  itself.  In  his  last  letter  to  David  before  he 
sailed,  he  wrote : 

"The  memory  of  the  woman  is  fading  a  bit,  al 
though  I  think  that  it  will  always  be  there,  an  echo 
of  some  impossible  happening.  But  I  am  wonder 
ing  again.  Europe  is  so  at  peace  with  itself,  so 
old  and  serene,  so  calmly  certain,  that  I  almost  fell 
asleep.  And  here  life  is  more  content  than  any 
where  I  have  seen  it,  content  with  the  sun,  with 
love,  with  the  devil  knows  what.  I  am  unsettled, 
even  more  so  than  last  year.  Last  year?  A  thou 
sand  years  ago.  The  woman  did  that,  I  think, 
sang  to  me  and  worried  me.  But  can  there  be 


62  PETER    KINDRED 

something  deeper  here  that  I  have  overlooked? 
In  Switzerland,  in  the  Alps  perhaps,  something  I 
might  have  caught  if  I  had  been  alone,  but  not  in 
Paris. 

6 'Father  and  mother  will  never  forgive  me  for 
leaving  them  so  alone  all  summer,  but  we  are  dif 
ferent  people.  The  foreign  means  to  them  geog 
raphy  and  architecture,  and  all  the  open  expres 
sion  of  another  people's  life.  But  to  me  it  means 
the  strange  fashion  of  living  and  thinking  and 
loving,  though  I'm  ashamed  to  say  that.  David, 
I've  grown  sentimental.  .  .  .  Oh,  well,  I'll  talk 
awhile  to  Frank,  and  let  you  laugh  at  me,  and  I'll 
get  over  it  well  enough." 

Back  across  the  ocean  memory  travelled  with 
Peter,  keeping  him  silent  in  his  chair,  and  lonely 
in  his  promenades.  His  greeting  to  the  sea  was 
as  to  a  friend  of  some  standing,  who  shared  a 
great  secret  with  him,  but  who  would  be  decently 
quiet  about  it. 

He  returned  to  America  with  the  same  unex 
pected  thrill  of  patriotism  with  which  he  had  left 
it,  and  found  an  unusual  beauty  in  his  first  sight 
of  the  flag,  the  statue,  and  the  towering  crags  of 
office  buildings  between  himself  and  the  sun.  His 
family  crowded  to  the  rail,  along  with  the  whole 
boat  full,  as  though  they  were  adventurers  re 
turned  from  the  moon,  beside  themselves  with  ex 
citement,  waving  to  their  relatives.  Tugs  whis 
tled,  the  ship  swung  slowly  in,  high  above  the 
wharf,  the  band  played,  and  Peter  descended 


PETER    KINDRED  63 

grandly  to  his  native  land.  Then  came  a  fussy 
waiting  to  come  through  the  customs,  a  rushing 
here  and  there,  lost  trunks,  packing  and  unpack 
ing  while  people  wove  in  and  about  him  in  the 
dim  yellow  gas  light;  the  long,  labored  trip  up 
town  in  the  roaring  tunnels  underneath  the  city, 
and  home  at  last,  to  rest  and  rest,  to  handle  fa 
miliar  things,  to  sit  in  familiar  places,  a  peaceful 
sense  of  finality,  of  order  again  and  ease,  the  com 
fortable  rut. 

To  the  sophomore  Harvard  gave  a  benign  wel 
come  after  he  had  come  across  the  morning-sunny 
Charles.  The  Square,  the  curve  of  the  Yard  wall, 
slender  and  iron,  heavy  with  trees  and  bushes,  the 
small  and  contented  shops,  even  the  level  car 
tracks  along  Massachusetts  Avenue  were  intimate 
to  him,  and  so  were  the  shadowed  side  streets  and 
the  little  sandwich  house  on  his  own  street,  where 
he  went  for  breakfast,  just  as  he  had  often  done. 
Indeed,  the  thing  that  gave  him  the  most  satis 
faction  of  all  was  that  he  knew  at  once  where  to 
go  for  his  breakfast,  and  that  he  did  not  eat  in  a 
strange  place. 

Peter's  room  looked  desolate,  as  though  it  had 
been  lonely  during  the  summer.  He  dropped  his, 
bag  and  stared  about  him,  drinking  in  the  aroma, 
of  his  old  life.  He  walked  to  his  window  and. 
looked  out  at  the  street,  across  at  the  yellow  Insti 
tute,  and,  turning  back  into  his  room  again,  idly- 
arranged  a  weatherbeaten  blotter  on  his  dnstjif 


64  PETER    KINDRED 

desk.  The  room  smelled  of  the  deserted  summer, 
and  faintly  through  it,  the  spring  and  the  winter 
and  the  fall  of  the  year  before,  of  books  and  to 
bacco  and  his  dilapidated  morris  chair.  He  could 
not  think  of  how  to  begin.  He  went  out  to  knock 
at  Frank's  door,  but  there  was  no  answer.  He 
hurried  down  the  street  to  David's  room,  but  it 
was  empty  and  hollow  to  his  knocking.  So  he  went 
slowly  back  to  his  room,  and  unpacked  his  bag, 
and  when  his  trunk  came,  unpacked  that  as  well, 
and  wandered  upon  Massachusetts  Avenue,  greet 
ing  a  few  men  casually,  looking  at  the  shops,  and 
renewing  relations  with  their  proprietors,  mark 
ing  time  with  his  year. 

But  by  dusk  David  had  come.  Peter,  turning 
into  David's  house,  heard  his  piano,  and  raced  up 
the  stairs  three  at  a  time.  David  was  sitting  with 
his  back  to  him,  playing  the  largest  chords  his 
hands  could  cover,  his  valises  dropped  at  his  feet, 
his  hat  and  coat  still  on  him.  Peter  stood  in  the 
doorway,  laughing  with  pure  happiness,  until 
David,  between  two  mighty  chords,  heard  him  and 
turned,  his  hands  suspended  in  the  air,  and 
jumped  to  his  feet.  And  there  they  stood,  full  to 
overflowing  with  their  past  life  together,  with 
more  to  say  to  each  other  than  they  could  possibly 
tell,  deeply  and  jubilantly  touched  to  be  again  to 
gether,  wringing  each  other's  hands,  patting  each 
other's  elbows,  and  grinning  as  sheepishly  as 
men  do. 

That  night  they  caroused  in  Boston,  arm  in  arm, 


PETER    KINDRED  65 

fortifying  themselves  with  beer  against  the  damp 
night  air  from  the  sea,  and  ending  up  nobly  at 
the  Touraine  with  music  and  wine,  a  Burgundy 
that  David  had  discovered  during  the  summer,  and 
which  he  ordered  in  a  very  important  way.  At 
Cambridge  again  they  sat  a  long  while  in  Peter's 
room,  sleepy  and  content,  almost  expecting  to  see 
the  ghosts  of  their  younger  selves  sitting  with 
them,  and  Peter  told  David  about  the  woman  and 
about  Europe,  and  about  Paris,  and  about  his  sum 
mer  and  himself,  while  David,  hunched  in  a  corner 
over  a  pipe,  regarded  Peter  slumbrously  from  a 
great  distance,  out  of  an  owlish  wisdom  and  a 
vast  experience. 

At  eight  the  next  morning  the  house  rocked, 
and  Peter  awoke  to  hear  his  door  slam,  to  hear  a 
cyclone  pass  through  his  room,  and  to  find  him 
self  suddenly  bereft  of  his  covers,  blinking  on  the 
floor.  A  voice  boomed  above  him,  and  he  sprang 
up  with  a  sleepy  cry.  Frank  had  arrived,  David 
was  in  Cambridge ;  college  had  opened,  his  sopho 
more  year  had  swung  into  full  stride. 

It  turned  out  that  David  had  been  at  his  music 
during  the  summer,  and  had  written  the  first 
movement  of  a  sonata,  and  three  songs.  Peter 
heard  them,  and  was  excited  at  them,  not  so  much, 
perhaps,  for  the  music,  as  that  David  had  writ 
ten  them.  For  Peter  was  no  critic ;  he  was  awed 
at  any  sweep  of  wings.  David  sent  his  songs  to 
Schirmer,  more  from  Peter's  urging  than  from  a 


66  PETER    KINDRED 

pride  in  them,  knowing  well  that  he  had  done  no 
very  good  work. 

With  the  opening  of  the  term  Peter  began  to 
consider  his  courses,  and  elected  economics  as 
much  from  a  sense  of  duty  as  anything  else.  At 
first  he  was  dissatisfied  with  it,  and  found  it  hard 
to  follow  the  abrupt  professor.  Eventually  the 
disconcerting  generalities  dwindled  away,  and 
with  more  definite  information  to  work  at,  Peter 
grew  interested.  David,  however,  would  have 
none  of  it,  but  joined  Peter  in  a  course  of  Indie 
philosophy. 

Once  more  a  pleasant  drift  of  hours  claimed 
Peter,  somnolent  mornings  in  the  droning  class 
rooms,  vagrant  afternoons,  slanting  with  sun ;  tea, 
and  the  gathering  chill  of  late  autumn,  evening, 
the  quiet  blue  streets,  and  clear  yellow  lights  in 
the  Square.  He  went  on  frequent  walks,  most 
often  with  David,  and  sometimes  with  Frank, 
through  Belmont  and  Waverly,  up  and  down  coun 
try  roads,  along  old  ivy  grown  and  crumbled  stone 
walls.  Frank,  smoking  a  heavy  briar  pipe,  walked 
with  long  strides,  thoughtfully,  in  a  manner  as 
though  he  were  at  rest  with  his  environment,  sat 
isfied  with  the  years  of  Cambridge  behind  him, 
and  from  a  decided  point  of  view  were  facing  life 
steadily.  Or,  so,  at  least,  it  seemed  to  Peter, 
trudging  along  beside  him,  or  sitting  below  him 
on  a  wall,  his  knees  huddled  under  his  chin,  his 
fingers  laced  about  his  shins. 

"I've  never  found   anything  very  sad  about 


PETER   KINDRED  67 

autumn,  Frank,"  he  said  at  one  time,  "but  it  isn't 
because  the  leaves  are  red.  The  witches  must  get 
into  me  at  Hallowe'en,  for  they  light  unholy  fires 
in  me,  until  I'm  fairly  ashamed  of  myself." 

"I  know,"  Frank  said,  "and  the  devil  of  it  is 
you  never  know  what  it's  all  about.  I  used  to  find 
autumn  sad,  my  second  year.  Now  it 's  the  spring. 
Somehow,  autumn  gives  me  a  push;  it's  as  though 
the  year  said,  'Here,  I'm  not  going  to  look  for  a 
while.  See  what  you  can  do. '  And  then  it  covers 
up  its  head  in  the  blanket  and  goes  to  sleep,  and 
there's  my  work  all  ready  for  me,  and  no  one  to 
ask  even  to  see  it  for  four  months.  Then  spring 
comes  along  and  asks  in  a  sort  of  drowsy  voice, 
'Gosh,  is  that  all  you've  done!' 

"H-mmmm.  And  yet,  if  you  could  show  the 
spring  something " 

"If  you  could.  But  even  so,  I  think  that  spring 
would  belittle  it.  The  gray  sky  and  the  bare, 
brown  earth,  and  the  wind  and  the  snow  give  man 
an  impetus  to  work.  Work  seems  to  be  the  big 
thing  at  that  time.  But  spring  .  .  .  well,  that's 
different.  It  may  be  because  earth  grows  erotic, 
and  lets  the  sun  seduce  her." 

"But  what  a  thought!" 

"Quite  seriously.  I  don't  know  that  we  are  so 
far  removed  from  the  earth  that  our  bodies 
shouldn't  be  affected  by  the  seasons.  But  it's  a 
good  thought  anyhow,  and  it  would  explain 
the  tradition  of  June  marriages.  Shall  we 
go  on?" 


68  PETER    KINDRED 

They  climbed  down  from  the  wall  and  walked 
back  toward  Cambridge.  From  a  hill  they  caught 
a  glimpse  of  the  tower  of  Memorial  standing  a 
dull  brick  above  the  bare  branches  of  trees,  with 
a  glimmer  of  blue  slate,  the  blue  roofs  of  dormi 
tories,  the  gray-white  Stadium  and  the  winding 
Charles  gleaming  between  its  banks.  Frank  took 
his  pipe  out  of  his  mouth,  and  pointed  with  the 
wet,  black  stem. 

"All  that,"  he  said,  "you'll  have  next  year, 
when  I'm  gone,  and  generations  will  have  it  after 
you,  when  you're  gone.  But  there's  nothing  in 
me  that  will  last.  I  wish  I  could  do  one  thing  that 
would  be  me  after  I  have  died.  I  wouldn't  mind 
if  I  were  going  somewhere  else,  because  then  I'd 
take  all  that  was  me  wherever  I  was  going.  ..." 

Yet,  as  they  went  on  together  through  the  au 
tumn  afternoon,  Peter  thought  of  what  Frank  had 
said  and  the  words  troubled  him.  For  he,  too, 
would  go  down  in  his  time,  and  leave  Cambridge 
behind  him,  and  later,  more  than  Cambridge,  all 
his  years ;  and  Peter,  too,  had  a  great  longing  and 
a  need  to  build. 

To  build  what?    But  that  would  be  an  answer. 

David's  songs  were  rejected,  and  for  a  while  he 
hid  himself  in  his  room,  although  he  had  had  no 
faith  in  them  himself.  When  Peter  saw  him  again, 
it  was  at  supper  across  the  long  table  in  Memorial, 
with  the  lofty  and  sombre  arch  of  the  roof  above 
them,  and  the  subdued  clatter  and  murmur  of  a 


PETER    KINDRED  69 

thousand  students  all  about.  David  was  sitting 
below  him,  but  Peter  waited  until  his  friend  was 
done,  and  then  walked  down  the  sounding  hall 
after  him,  between  the  long  white  tables.  Com 
ing  down  the  steps,  with  the  night  cold  and  snowy 
before  them,  he  took  David's  arm,  and  the  two 
men  walked  together  across  the  Yard  again,  down 
Holyoke,  and  up  Peter's  old  stairs.  And  David 
told  Peter  he  had  taken  a  class  in  the  slums,  under 
Wiener. 

"Oh,  my  music,  .  .  ."  he  growled  to  Peter, 
"my  music  .  .  .  isn't  music.  Bother  with  it. 
This  is  real,  at  any  rate. ' ' 

"I'm  not  at  all  sure  that  it's  real,"  said  Peter. 

"It's  all  very  well  for  you  to  say  so,"  David 
cried,  "with  all  Harvard  before  you.  You'll  man 
age  something  yet,  you  know,  and  be  an  Institute 
man." 

"In  the  first  place,"  Peter  said  calmly,  "they 
have  no  use  for  me.  I  have  no  honors,  I'm  not 
here  for  honors,  David,  of  that  sort.  I  want  to 
know  why  men  work  and  live,  and  why  they  love 
and  fight,  and  how  I  had  best  do  all  that.  I'll 
not  find  it,  tagging  about  with  settled  heroes  and 
falling  asleep  ...  I  want  to  know  just  what  it 
means  to  be  a  gentleman." 

"Wiener  says "  David  began. 

"Ah,"  Peter  broke  in  quickly,  "I  won't  find  it 
in  the  slums." 

"Where  then?"  grumbled  David. 

Peter  shrugged  his  shoulders. 


70  PETER    KINDRED 

"There's  a  man  here  from  Leland  Stanford — 
a  chap  named  Don  Mark — who  thinks  I'll  find  it 
in  Carver." 

"What  on  earth,"  asked  David,  "is  Carver?" 

6 1  Why, ' '  said  Peter,  "  I  don 't  really  know.  But 
as  far  as  I  can  make  out,  Carver  is  a  teacher  at 
college,  with  a  sort  of  message,  and  a  crowd  of 
apostles." 

"Here,"  cried  David,  "at  Harvard?" 

"Yes." 

"I  don't  believe  it,"  said  David. 

"It  is  queer,"  said  Peter,  "isn't  it?" 

"Still,"  he  added,  "this  westerner  came  all  the 
way  from  Stanford  to  study  with  him.  So  he  can 't 
be  a  ...  a  fabulous  monster,  can  he?" 

Sunday  in  Cambridge  is  a  tone  poem  in  dejec 
tion.  There  is  in  it  something  of  an  old  beer  bot 
tle,  righteously  empty,  and  wise  men  stay  indoors 
and  read  the  colored  supplements.  Across  the 
whole  countryside  are  church  bells  ringing,  min 
isters  preaching,  chickens  roasting,  men  and 
women  parading  in  starched  ruffles,  little  children 
with  their  ears  washed.  As  a  result  the  sky  is 
sleepy  and  far  away,  and  wise  men,  looking  out 
of  their  windows,  wish  themselves  somewhere  else 
too,  at  Marblehead,  perhaps,  along  the  rocky 
coast  with  the  gray  sea  stretched  before  them,  and 
the  fish  of  the  sea,  among  whom  there  is  no  Sun 
day,  nor  any  church  bells  either,  nor  any  ears  to 
wash.  As  Don  Mark  described  it  to  Peter,  on  Sun- 


PETER    KINDRED  71 

day  men  cease  production,  and  squirm  all  day 
under  the  heavy  realization  that  everyone  else  has 
done  the  same  thing,  and  that  the  earth,  or  at  any 
rate,  their  portion  of  the  earth,  is  coasting  largely 
through  space,  with  no  one  doing  anything.  But 
Peter  thought  of  the  pleasure  of  going  late  to 
bed  Saturday  night,  and  lying  abed  Sunday  morn 
ing  beyond  the  ordinary  time,  and  disagreed 
strongly  with  Don  Mark's  theory. 

" Nonsense,"  said  the  westerner.  "By  three 
o'clock  of  a  Sunday  afternoon,  the  world  goes  call 
ing.  Do  you  like  that?  Does  any  man?  Don't 
tell  me.  I've  done  it.  The  world  goes  calling, 
and  jolly  well  wishes  it  were  dead." 

Peter  and  Frank  and  Don  Mark  had  eaten  their 
Sunday  dinner  together  at  the  Green  Lantern, 
and  after  complimenting  Mrs.  Prentiss  upon  her 
maid  Susan  and  the  chicken,  and  Susan  upon  her 
mistress  Mrs.  Prentiss  and  the  chocolate  pud 
ding,  Peter  and  Don  had  wandered  out  Brattle 
Street,  and  Frank  had  gone  home  to  dress  for  a 
visit  to  his  aunt  at  the  Hotel  Puritan. 

Peter  was  surprised  to  find  the  westerner  in 
clined  to  like  him.  He  was  always  surprised  at 
friendliness,  never  expected  it,  rarely  found  it, 
yet  always  looked  for  it.  When  it  was  offered,  he 
took  all  of  it  at  once ;  he  plunged  into  affection  like 
a  child. 

They  came  back  again  past  Radcliffe.  It  was 
Don  Mark's  first  sight  of  that  college,  and  he  was 
accusing. 


72  PETER    KINDRED 

"But  look  here,"  he  said,  "it's  not  a  bad  place 
at  all." 

Peter  shook  his  head  absently. 

"Well,  then,"  Don  Mark  said,  "what's  the  mat 
ter  with  it?" 

Peter  considered.  To  be  truthful,  he  knew  of 
nothing  at  all  the  matter  with  it. 

"Oh,"  he  said  finally,  "it  has  no  Yard,  and  the 
girls  wear  spectacles  and  big  shoes  with  low 
heels." 

The  westerner  smiled.  "I  always  heard  that 
Radcliffe  was  well  thought  of  in  the  east,"  he 
said. 

"I  guess  it  is,"  Peter  agreed. 

"High  scholarship  and  all  that,"  Don  Mark 
went  on. 

"Yes." 

"You  think  it  lacks  something?" 

"The  emotional  appeal,  perhaps." 

"Oh!"  and  Don  Mark  began  to  laugh. 

"To  tell  you  the  honest  truth,"  said  Peter,  "I 
don't  believe  I've  ever  thought  of  it  in  any  other 
way.  It's  an  heritage  from  Exeter,  where  Wel- 
lesley  girls  used  to  come  to  our  Andover  games, 
attached  to  some  lucky  fellow.  They  were  a  bit 
different  from  the  Radcliffe  women  you  see  chew 
ing  their  chocolate  at  the  Merle." 

"What  a  rake  you  are.  With  a  moon  and  a 
woman  and  water  and  lanterns  and  things, 
wouldn't  you  make  as  fearful  an  ass  of  yourself 
as  the  best  of  them." 


PETER   KINDRED  73 

Peter  colored  and  did  not  answer.  Don  Mark 
chuckled. 

"I'd  rather  have  a  woman  chewing  her  choco 
late  across  the  breakfast  table,"  he  said.  "It 
sounds  poor,  but  it's  healthy." 


CHAPTER  IV 

MONDAY  morning  there  was  a  letter  from 
Peter's  father. 

"My  dear  Peter,"  he  wrote,  "I  am  sorry  to  say 
that  your  mother  is  not  feeling  well.  The  doctor 
thinks  it  is  nothing  serious,  so  there  is  no  need  to 
worry,  but  that  will  explain  why  she  has  not  writ 
ten  you.  .  .  . 

""What  you  say  about  your  books  displeases  me 
very  much.  It  is  very  nice  to  have  a  library,  I 
know,  but  I  am  not  at  all  a  wealthy  man,  and  you 
have  no  right  to  be  so  extravagant,  seeing  as  how 
it  was  a  great  sacrifice  to  your  mother  and  to  me 
to  send  you  to  college  at  all,  and  if  you  cannot  get 
along  on  your  allowance,  you  will  have  to  come 
home. 

"I  am  very  much  disappointed  in  your  work, 
you  seem  to  be  stuffing  your  head  full  of  useless 
twaddle.  I  am  not  working  night  and  day  to  fill 
your  head  full  of  nonsense.  I  think  it  is  time  that 
you  woke  up,  and  began  to  look  around  you  a  bit. 
If  college  is  just  an  excuse  for  you  to  buy  books 
and  have  a  good  time  and  spend  all  you  can  get 
out  of  me,  you'd  better  come  home  right  away. 

74 


PETER   KINDRED  75 

" Edith  was  at  a  dance  last  night  and  enjoyed 
herself  very  much.  You  will  be  interested  to 
know  that  young  Smith  whom  you  may  remember 
to  have  met  here,  is  doing  fine  work  in  his  uncle 's 
business,  and  has  just  been  promoted.  Your  Aunt 
Hester  was  here  for  dinner  last  night,  and  we 
spent  an  enjoyable  evening  afterwards  at  bridge, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ellensbogle  coming  in.  Tomorrow 
night  we  are  to  hear  Alfred  Noyes  speak,  and  I 
am  sure  it  will  be  both  instructive  and  enter 
taining. 

"Your  mother  and  sister  join  me  in  sending  you 
our  love, 

"Yr.  affect. 

"Father/' 

To  that  Peter  rose  in  hot  rebellion,  and  cut  his 
nine  o'clock  class  to  write  an  answer.  He  did  not 
mail  it  at  once,  however,  and  spent  the  entire  day 
wondering  whether  to  send  it  at  all.  When  he  re 
read  the  answer  at  night,  he  tore  it  up.  ...  It 
didn't  seem  to  be  the  right  thing.  In  his  father's 
position  he  caught  a  hint  of  strength,  of  the  some 
what  pathetic  power  of  fact.  But  it  was  a  pathos 
and  fact  that  he  had  little  use  for  then,  and,  in 
deed,  he  hardly  understood  it.  He  thought  that, 
his  father  was  very  unintelligent,  and  that  it  was 
too  bad.  A  hot-headed  youthfulness  possessed 
him,  and  he  said  a  private  bah  to  the  man  Smith 
who  had  not  known  so  many  things,  who  had  not 
known  the  austere  friendliness  of  Harvard,  the 
dusty  windows  of  Peter's  room,  brimmed  with 


76  PETER    KINDRED 

sun,  the  pride  of  stout-backed  books,  the  man 
Smith,  who  had  no  belief,  and  had  not  heard  of 
Carver. 

For  Peter  was  considering  Carverism.  It  had 
been  vaguely  explained  to  him  as  the  religion  of 
construction,  the  religion  whose  immortality  lay 
in  no  doubtful  heaven,  but  in  the  life  of  the  race, 
its  children  and  their  children,  whose  essence  was 
production  and  production  that  the  race  might 
live,  might  grow  greater  and  stronger,  and  still 
production.  *  *  What  are  you  worth  to  the  group  ? ' ' 
said  Carver,  and  Peter  rather  liked  that,  and  flung 
it  tentatively  at  the  man  Smith  and  at  his  father. 
In  his  impetuous  youth  it  seemed  to  him  that  no 
answer  came  back. 

For  the  young  are  incapable  of  compromise 
with  defeat,  and  cannot  understand  it.  Peter  lis 
tened  among  men  for  sturdy  beliefs  heroically  set 
forth,  and  if  men  were  mute  and  woebegone,  why 
then  they  had  no  beliefs.  And  men  without  be 
liefs  were  miserable.  It  was  not  enough  that  men 
with  battered  faith  should  build  up  their  faith 
again  and  add  the  compromise  and  the  doubt  ex 
perience  had  taught  and  go  more  grimly  and  more 
quietly  each  down  his  road.  No  ...  a  man's 
faith  must  go  riding  before  him,  or  he  had  none. 

Carver,  at  any  rate,  spoke  sturdily.  "  Labor, " 
he  said,  "and  build.  Produce  for  the  group,  for 
the  strength  of  the  group.  Or  what  good  are 
you?" 

So  much  Peter  understood.  .  .  . 


PETER    KINDRED  7T 

The  letter  filled  Peter  with  alarm  but  no  thought 
of  action.  Indeed,  he  would  not  have  been  able 
to  do  other  than  he  was  doing,  even  if  he  had  been 
confronted  with  the  necessity  of  immediately  pre 
paring  to  make  his  own  way;  he  could  have 
thought  of  nothing  more  helpful  than  a  little  study 
in  the  same  divergent  fields,  walks  and  discus 
sions,  afternoons  in  Cambridge,  some  evenings  in 
Boston.  But  after  all,  college  ought  not  to  mean 
much  more  than  that,  a  place  for  ripening  in  the 
sun ;  and  it  is  only  in  this  headstrong  America  that 
we  expect  the  college  graduate  to  be  completely 
equipped  for  the  struggle,  and  it  is  only  in  Amer 
ica  that  he  is  not. 

The  feeling  of  dependence  upon  his  father 
would  not  let  Peter  be ;  he  could  not  shake  it  off, 
and  it  gave  a  bitter  flavor  to  his  purchases,  and 
destroyed  his  pride  in  his  belongings.  For  a  while 
he  tried  to  discover  some  means  of  earning  money 
himself,  but  he  had  no  idea  of  how  to  go  about  it, 
and  he  was  soon  baffled.  He  could  think  of  noth 
ing  that  he  could  do,  and  no  one  else  could  think 
of  anything  for  him,  either;  the  business  side  of 
Boston  was  as  remote  to  him  as  Ethiopia.  He 
made  a  faint-hearted  attempt  to  procure  some 
tutoring,  but  since  he  was  only  a  sophomore,  and 
had  no  reputation  as  a  scholar,  he  failed  in  that, 
and  since  his  effort  did  not  go  as  far  as  to  cause 
him  to  apply  for  so  honest  a  job  as  waiter  or  fur 
nace  man,  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  accept  his 
allowance,  study  a  bit  harder,  and  hope  for  a 


78  PETER    KINDRED 

larger  scholarship  and  perhaps  a  prize  in 
June. 

It  was  in  this  state  of  mind  that  he  came  into  his 
room  one  December  night,  and  found  David 
sprawled  in  a  chair.  David's  cheeks  were  red, 
but  otherwise  there  was  nothing  unusual  about 
him. 

" Hello,  there, "  Peter  said,  "any  news?" 

'  '  Mmbleumble, "  David  muttered,  and  Peter 
stared  at  him.  David  lifted  lack-lustre  eyes  and 
looked  back  at  Peter.  Then  he  smiled  childishly. 

"I  got  a  great  piece  inf  'mashun,  a  great  piece 
inf  'mashun,"  he  said  in  a  drunken  voice.  "I  got 
a  great  piece  ...  I'm  drunk,  Peter!"  he  shouted, 
"I'm  drunk,  Peter,  you  old  hell  hound,  drunk, 
Peter,  d-w-x-v-r-n-k  drunk!"  He  stopped  a  mo 
ment  to  gather  breath,  and  then  burst  into  loud, 
hollow  laughter,  half  doubled  over  in  his  chair. 

"So  I  see,"  said  Peter  sharply,  half  thinking  it 
a  hoax,  uncertain  whether  to  laugh  or  to  be  angry, 
wondering  what  to  believe. 

"Whee!"  cried  David,  staggering  to  his  feet, 
and  lurched  across  the  room  to  Peter.  He  put  his 
arms  around  Peter's  neck  and  let  his  body  sag. 

"Good  old  Peter,"  he  said  several  times.  "I'm 
drunk,  Peter. ' '  Then,  suddenly  changing  his  tone, 
he  became  melancholy  and  confidential. 

"You'll  nev'  know,  Peter,  nev'  know.  Poor  lil 
David.  Poor  lil  Peter." 

"Never  know  what,  you  confounded  ass!"  cried 
Peter. 


PETER    KINDRED  79 

know,  Peter,  poor  lil  David,  drunk. 
Good  old  Peter.  C'm  on,  dance,  good  old  Peter." 

He  essayed  a  clumsy  breakdown,  but  Peter 
pushed  him  away,  and  he  went  reeling.  Ending 
up  somewhere  near  the  door  he  turned  and 
sprawled  out  of  it,  and  half  fell  downstairs, 
mumbling  to  himself.  With  considerable  diffi 
culty  he  found  the  doorknob,  and  charged  out  into 
the  street,  where  he  went  lurching  off  toward  the 
Square. 

Peter,  standing  in  consternation  in  the  middle 
of  his  room,  was  swept  alternately  by  sheer 
amazement  at  such  a  thing,  by  anger,  by  disgust, 
and  finally  by  laughter.  Then  he  became  penitent 
and  ashamed  of  his  own  thoughtless  part  in  the 
business,  and  worried  that  David  would  meet  with 
some  trouble  on  his  way  home.  He  hurried  down 
stairs  and  out  into  the  street.  David  was  not  to  be 
seen,  nor  was  he  in  the  Square,  but  Peter  found 
the  windows  of  his  room  lighted,  so  he  guessed 
that  David  had  come  safely  home,  and  returned 
slowly  to  his  own  rooms,  wondering  what  it  was 
all  about,  and  resolved  to  have  a  very  plain  talk 
with  David  on  the  morrow. 

But  on  the  morrow  that  gentleman  was  disin 
clined  to  discuss  the  matter.  He  was  grumpy  and 
vague,  and  after  admitting  that  he  was  sorry,  he 
was  anxious  to  drop  the  whole  thing.  Peter  came 
away  wondering  if  things  had  gone  wrong  with 
David,  and  what  might  have  happened.  David, 
he  thought,  seemed  to  be  breaking  up  rather  badly, 


80  PETER    KINDRED 

almost  as  though  he  were  trying  to  come  to  grips 
with  something  and  couldn't. 

But  he  had  no  chance  to  talk  to  him  about  it,  for 
he  didn't  see  him  again  for  several  days,  and 
when  David  did  come  carelessly  into  his  room 
again,  it  was  more  the  David  of  old,  so  there  was 
no  way  of  broaching  the  subject. 

Peter's  sunny  room  commended  itself  to  Don 
Mark,  and  so  did  Peter.  There  was  in  both  the 
room  and  in  Peter  a  quiet  acceptance  of  his  pres 
ence  that  he  found  exceedingly  pleasant ;  it  was  a 
spot  where  his  own  tempestuous  convictions  might 
be  aired  and  listened  to  with  the  proper  contem 
plation,  and  a  man  ready  to  listen  at  any  time, 
incapable  of  argument,  but  worth  while  winning 
over  to  a  cause,  for  a  certain  quaint  seriousness 
about  him.  He  took  to  dropping  in  on  Peter  at 
odd  times,  between  lectures,  or  late  at  night,  often 
to  sit  silently  smoking  while  Peter  worked  at  his 
desk.  Sometimes  Peter,  coming  home  from  Bos 
ton,  found  him  there,  and  the  sight  of  the  fair- 
haired  westerner  waiting  his  return  gave  him  a 
wrarm  and  stirring  feeling  of  being  well  be 
friended,  and  then  he  bustled  about  hospitably,  to 
Don's  half  grateful  amusement. 

Often  Frank  stormed  in  from  the  welter  of  his 
room,  and  waged  philosophical  battles  with  Don, 
while  Peter  curled  up  into  a  ball  on  the  couch  and 
smoked  and  dreamed.  Then  he  was  half  sneak- 
ingly  glad  that  David  was  not  there;  somehow, 


PETER    KINDRED  81 

David  had  no  place  in  the  scene,  David,  with  his 
own  personal  conclusions,  was  out  of  place, 
dwarfed,  unimportant  among  philosophies.  David 
was  not  an  ist  or  an  ite,  he  was  just  David,  with 
feelings,  illogical,  unreflective.  Peter  probably 
never  reasoned  all  that  out  by  himself,  but  half 
sensed  it.  He  was  caught  up  in  admiration  for 
knowledge,  for  criticism,  authoritative  and  severe, 
and  above  all,  correct.  David  would  not  be  cor 
rect,  would  not  be  authoritative,  and  David, 
too,  would  not  be  content  to  sit  silently  lis 
tening. 

Against  the  Carverism  of  Don  Mark,  Frank  ad 
vanced  the  tenets  of  Pragmatism  and  their  good 
humored  but  heated  discussions  reverberated 
through  the  house  until  it  shook.  Frank  would 
never  admit  the  glory  of  stamping  a  man  any 
thing  or  for  any  end  but  himself. 

"Piffle  and  shucks!"  Don  cried  more  than  once, 
"if  you  make  a  single  man  his  own  end,  in  a  very 
short  time  there'll  be  no  men.  And  there  you've 
defeated  yourself." 

"On  the  other  hand,"  Frank  shouted,  "you 
have  no  right  to  hypothecate  a  will  to  live  at  all. 
If  I  want  more  to  eat  opium  than  live,  why  should 
Hive?" 

"In  order  to  eat  opium,  if  for  nothing  else!" 
Don  cried.  "But  if  you  did  eat  opium  and  died, 
I'd  still  be  alive — doing  what  I  wanted  to.  So 
who'd  be  better  off?  You  wouldn't  be  eating 
opium,  you  know,  you'd  be  dead." 


82  PETER    KINDRED 

Frank  laughed  with  a  great  show  of  scorn. 
"And  if  I  preferred  to  die?"  he  asked. 

"Hum.  Well  .  .  .  Then  you'd  die.  And  your 
blooming  philosophy  would  die  with  you.  So  1 
don't  see  where  ..." 

"You  haven't  said  a  thing.  Why,  it  is  better  to 
live  if  you  want  .  .  . " 

"You  forget  one  thing  .  .  ." 

"You  have  to  explain  to  me  .  .  ." 

"...  Competition  would  naturally  force  .  .  ." 

".  .  .  Each  man  attend  to  his  own  .  .  ." 

"Bosh!" 

"Fiddle  sticks!" 

Silence. 

Peter  rarely  entered  into  the  arguments  that 
raged  between  Don  and  Frank,  but  leaned  back 
in  his  chair,  absorbing  the  color  and  the  tenor 
of  the  discussions,  with  a  contented  feeling  that 
they  were  important,  and  that  he  was  listening. 
He  heard  a  great  talk  of  Carver  and  James  and 
Santayana,  not  very  much  that  he  understood, 
but  a  good  deal  that  aroused  his  curiosity.  Yet 
just  what  Pragmatism  amounted  to  from  a  prac 
tical  point  of  view,  no  one  seemed  able  to  tell  him, 
and  he  was  equally  at  sea  about  Carver.  He 
could  get  no  nearer  to  either  than  the  belief  that 
they  were  both  attitudes  toward  life,  to  be  slowly 
digested  the  one  or  the  other,  and  then  allowed 
to  color  things  as  they  would,  and  to  give  different 
meanings  to  things  according  to  their  various 
states  of  digestion.  Peter  guessed  shrewdly  that 


PETER    KINDRED  83 

no  two  Pragmatists  were  more  alike  than  any  two 
members  of  the  same  family  were  apt  to  be,  and 
that  Carver  was  the  same  affair,  a  digested  atti- 
tnde,  affecting  various  people  differently.  What 
Peter  did  not  quite  know  was  that  neither  the  one 
nor  the  other  could  be  administered  like  a  large, 
sudden  capsule,  but  that  both  needed  a  gradual 
nibbling. 

But  there  was  something  very  satisfying  about 

Carver. 

•  • 

With  the  winter  Peter  began  to  move  in  wider 
social  circles,  due  as  much  to  Frank  and  Don  Mark 
as  to  the  fact  that  he  was  not  seen  so  often  with 
David.  Frank  spoke  of  it  to  Don,  as  the  two  stood 
at  a  window  of  Frank's  room,  watching  the  morn 
ing  street.  Peter  and  David  went  by,  walking  to 
gether  and  talking.  Frank  shook  his  head  and 
tapped  his  fingers  on  the  glass  impatiently. 

"I  wish  Kindred  would  leave  that  chap  alone," 
he  said. 

Don  looked  reflective.  "Why?"  he  asked. 
"There's  nothing  particularly  wrong  with  him?" 

"No.    But  he's  spoiling  Harvard  for  Peter." 

"So?" 

"It  hurts  Peter  to  be  seen  around  with  him." 

"Because  he's  a  Jew?" 

"Yes,  rather.  And  because  he's  not  a  particu 
larly  pleasant  fellow.  A  bit  hysterical  .  .  .  im 
patient  .  .  .  restless  .  .  .  bitter.  I  always  feel 
that  he  might  burst  out  quite  nastily  at  any  mo- 


84  PETER    KINDRED 

ment.  Oh,  I'm  not  down  on  Jews  as  a  race. 
There's  something  ...  a  rather  pathetic  and 
wistful  sweetness  about  Jewish  women  .  .  .  some 
Jewish  women.  And  some  Jewish  men  have  a  lot 
of  fire.  But  this  chap  David  doesn't  seem  to  have 
found  himself  ...  a  bit  volcanic  still,  and  grum 
bling.  Too  eager.  And  then,  of  course,  he's  a 
Jew,  and  Peter  simply  can't  take  him  around  with 
him,  Don,  because  the  men  who  might  like  Peter, 
don't  like  Jews.  I  don 't  blame  them  .  .  .  they've 
been  brought  up  that  way.  As  for  me,  I  dislike 
the  man.  He  doesn't  seem  to  want  to  trust  any 
body.  " 

"I  do  blame  those  fellows  you  mentioned,"  said 
Don.  "  There  may  be  a  lot  of  good  stuff  in  David. 
Why,  Peter  himself  is  no  intellectual  giant,  old 
Frank. " 

"No,  but  Peter  is  a  dear  lad.  You  must  admit 
that,  Don." 

"I  wouldn't  call  anybody  a  dear  lad.  Not  in  a 
thousand  years." 

"I  suppose  in  your  silly  system  you'd  have 
numbers  to  describe  a  man.  For  instance,  so  and 
so,  slightly  eggy,  series  777,  No.  1756.  So  and  so, 
malty,  series  X  .  .  ." 

"Well,  at  any  rate  I  wouldn't  have  a  country 
full  of  dope  fiends  and  suicide  clubs  compet- 
ing  .  .  ." 

"Yah!  You  admitted  yourself  the  other  night 
that  everybody  would  die  and  that  there 'd  be  no 
competition." 


PETER    KINDRED  85 

"But  I  was  thinking  of  this,  Frank.  Seriously, 
don't  be  absurd.  You  can't  live  without  competi 
tion.  Why,  even  the  Pragmatists  would  be  com 
peting  among  themselves  for  the  chance  .  .  ." 

I  do  not  believe  that  Peter  realized  even  faintly 
that  his  waning  intimacy  with  David  was  widen 
ing  his  social  life  in  college ;  if  he  had,  he  would 
probably  have  haunted  David  out  of  pure  pride 
and  stubbornness.  Nevertheless,  he  did  not  miss 
David  very  much,  and  made  hardly  more  than  a 
half-hearted  effort  to  see  him.  David,  in  his 
moodiness,  exaggerated  Peter's  carelessness  and 
made  it  even  harder,  as  a  result,  for  them  to  meet 
as  they  used  to.  He  felt,  unjustly,  that  Peter 
was  ashamed  of  him ;  he  knew  that  Frank  and  Don 
were  not  glad  to  see  him,  and  believed  that  Peter 
had  been  influenced  by  them.  Although  he  would 
not  blame  Peter,  he  adopted  a  general  sense  of 
injury  that  Peter  did  not  like  at  all,  and  could  not 
understand. 

During  the  Christmas  holidays  Frank  spent  a 
night  with  Peter  in  New  York,  much  to  the  excite 
ment  of  Edith  and  his  mother,  and  to  his  father's 
half  proud  satisfaction,  for,  poor  soul,  Frank,  at 
any  rate,  was  a  tangible  evidence  of  his  sacrifice 
to  give  Peter  a  college  education,  and  a  deal  more 
satisfaction  than  a  long  bill  for  books.  Peter  was 
half  apologetic  for  his  parents,  and  wholly  for  his 
home,  but  Frank  caused  him  to  feel  ashamed  of 
himself  by  enjoying  everything  hugely,  and  drop 
ping  his  belongings  familiarly  everywhere. 


86  PETER    KINDRED 

Cambridge,  cold  and  snowy,  blinked  with  sun 
at  him  as  he  came  out  of  the  subway.  The  Square 
Avas  at  the  edge  of  Alaska  or  Labrador;  beyond  it 
stretched  the  white  country,  the  pines,  silence, 
and  the  winter  sky.  Or  so  it  seemed  to  Peter. 
He  smiled  at  the  Yard  and  at  the  gray  and  red 
houses  across  from  it,  as  though  it  all  were  home, 
and  he  a  returning  prodigal  delighted  to  see 
everything  where  it  was  when  he  left.  He  went  in 
to  Jimmie's  for  breakfast,  to  Jimmie  "s  where 
there  were  probably  the  most  succulent  eggs  to  be 
had  in  all  North  America,  and  exchanged  greet 
ings  with  four  men.  Only  the  elite  ate  at  Jim- 
mie  's,  and  it  gave  Peter  a  deal  of  satisfaction.  It 
was  a  small  place  and  Jimmie  made  it  his  busi 
ness  to  know  the  names  of  all  the  worth  while 
customers.  I  say  Jimmie  but  I  really  mean  Aus 
tin,  for  he  was  the  most  important  man  behind 
the  counter;  to  him  you  gave  your  order,  and  he 
called  it  back  to  a  farther  angle  of  the  counter 
where  sandwiches  were  made.  It  was  Austin  who 
boiled  your  eggs  in  a  machine  which  slid  up  and 
down  and  ticked,  and  Austin  who  prepared  your 
coffee.  As  I  said,  he  knew  the  names  of  all  the 
worth  while  customers,  and  if  he  failed  to  remem 
ber  you  toward  the  close  of  your  freshman  year, 
you  grew  tired  of  Jimmie 's.  Austin  was  a  bit  sus 
picious  of  Peter,  but  bowed  to  him,  and  had 
trusted  him  once  or  twice.  So  Peter  patronized 
Jimmie 's  and  let  his  eggs  tick  for  three  minutes 
and  a  half  exactly.  Heigh-ho  .  .  . 


PETER    KINDRED  87 

Peter  did  not  find  all  Harvard  patterned  after 
either  Frank  or  Don  Mark.  Often  he  came  into 
Frank's  room  to  find  it  in  the  possession  of  men 
of  many  clubs,  making  a  great  low-hung  fog  of 
smoke  of  their  cigarettes.  The  talk  was  always 
lively,  and  interspersed  with  laughter,  but  curi 
ously  personal  and  slight,  made  up  of  happenings 
and  opinions,  gossip  of  Cambridge  and  Boston, 
discussion  of  courses,  of  motors,  stories  of  various 
women.  They  were  inclined  to  accept  Peter  if 
he  remained  unobtrusive  and  asked  no  questions, 
and,  indeed,  he  was  only  too  glad  to  do  that,  for 
they  were  singularly  careless  and  untroubled 
men,  and  to  Peter  they  seemed  to  be  wander 
ing  in  a  dream,  along  old  paths,  almost  without 
effort. 

He  went  on  one  party  with  Frank  in  the  demi 
monde,  and  sat  at  a  table  silently  beside  a  thin- 
lipped,  bony-nosed  woman  in  a  low-cut  bodice. 
He  sat  nervously  fingering  his  glass  of  Khine 
wine  and  seltzer,  and  trying  to  think  of  what  men 
had  spoken  of  on  like  parties  in  the  stories  he  had 
read.  After  a  certain  amount  of  silence  and  un 
interesting  conversation  the  bony-nosed  lady  di 
rected  her  attention  to  the  man  at  her  other  side, 
and  indulged  in  a  patter  of  pleasantry  with  him, 
while  Peter  sat  and  listened  and  wondered  how  it 
could  flow  on  with  so  little  effort,  all  about  noth 
ing.  Afterwards  he  left  the  party  and  went  home, 
taking  a  deep  gulp  of  fresh  air  as  he  came  down 
the  steps  of  the  cafe,  and  then  waited  unconscion- 


SB  PETER    KINDRED 

ably  for  Frank  to  come  home  at  a  wee  Hour  and 
delight  him  with  a  tale  of  wickedness. 

After  mid  years  Frank  took  him  to  a  tea  in 
Boston,  and  took  Don  Mark  along  as  well,  a  tea 
in  the  great  world.  Don  made  a  great  fuss  about 
it,  and  objected  as  hard  as  he  was  able,  but  Frank 
overwhelmed  him  by  sheer  force  of  insistence,  and 
Peter  was  so  curious  and  so  anxious  for  Don  to 
go  along,  to  keep  him  company  if  for  nothing  else, 
that  the  westerner  gave  in  at  last  and  went,  grum 
bling  loudly. 

To  Peter's  dismay,  Frank  led  them  up  the  steps 
of  a  broad- wind  owed  brownstone  house  on  Beacon 
Street,  and  a  butler  opened  the  door.  Peter 
slipped  out  of  his  coat,  and  stood  meekly  near 
Don,  fingering  his  chin  and  his  tie,  tremendously 
glad  that  he  wasn't  alone.  Finally  Frank  went 
on  up  the  thickly  carpeted  stairway,  with  Don 
striding  defiantly  behind  him,  and  Peter  bringing 
up  the  craven  rear. 

There  was  a  certain  flutter  of  introductions  in 
a  room  patterned  idly  in  deep  tones  and  peoples 9 
faces,  in  the  colors  of  women's  frocks,  warmth, 
movement,  and  an  odor  of  delicate  perfume,  the 
scent  of  furs,  and  flowers,  the  hum  of  voices. 
Peter,  moving  from  the  doorway  past  the  outer 
most  circle  of  it,  became  absorbed  in  the  pattern 
of  colors  and  voices.  He  saw  the  faces  of  Har 
vard  men  here  and  there,  club  men,  some  of  whom 
he  knew,  some  famous  names  he  had  heard  of, 
faces  he  passed  on  the  coast  sometimes.  He  had 


PETER   KINDRED  89 

a  confused  sense  of  women,  fat  ones  and  thin  ones. 
Finally  he  found  himself  in  a  corner  with  Don 
Mark,  watching  the  pattern  again.  A  tall,  slim, 
haughty  woman  passed  them,  and  looked  at  Peter 
with  dark,  heavily  lashed  eyes.  Peter  gulped. 
"Ooh,"  he  said  to  Don. 

His  friend  sniffed.  "Did  vou  like  that?"  he 
asked.  Peter  nodded. 

"Well,"  said  Don  judicially,  "she's  no  find  of 
yours.  Her  name  is  something  or  other  Peawinkle 
and  they  say  that  she's  the  most  beautiful  woman 
in  Boston.  Frank  says  so,  anyhow." 

Peter  nodded,  as  though  to  say  that  he  could 
well  understand  it.  Don  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"What  does  she  do  with  it!"  he  asked. 

"With  what!" 

"Her  good  looks,  of  course.  What  else  has  she 
to  do  anything  with?" 

Peter  laughed.  "I  don't  know,"  he  said,  "I 
suppose  she  plays  dolly  with  it." 

"Well,"  said  Don,  "it's  .  .  .  it's  conspicuous 
waste.  .  .  .  On  the  other  hand,  look  there. ' ' 

Peter's  eyes  followed  the  other's  across  the 
room,  where  a  woman  who  had  just  come  in  was 
shaking  hands  with  the  hostess.  She  wore  a  fur- 
trimmed  turban,  and  beneath  it  her  eyes  were  owl- 
ishly  encircled  with  tortoise-shell  spectacles.  Her 
cheeks  were  pink,  as  though  she  had  just  been 
walking,  and  her  entire  formless  body,  of  me 
dium  build,  expressed  a  vitality  and  a  free  swing 
ing  litheness  that  her  loose  tweed  suit  was  unable 


90  PETER    KINDRED 

to  conceal.  She  did  not  appear  to  have  over  much 
hair;  what  she  had,  of  a  reddish-brown  tint,  was 
drawn  carefully  up  under  her  turban.  Her  thin 
ankles  went  suddenly  into  large,  low-heeled  shoes 
that  were  planted  firmly  on  the  floor,  with  the 
toes  turned  the  least  bit  toward  each  other. 

"Radcliffe,"  said  Peter  deliberately. 

"Very  probably.  Now  there,  my  dear  Peter,  is 
the  sort  of  woman  I  could  talk  to." 

They  were  joined  by  an  acquaintance  of  Peter's, 
a  man  he  had  met  once  or  twice  during  his  fresh 
man  year,  and  whom  he  had  since  occasionally 
encountered  on  the  street.  In  Cambridge  the  fel 
low,  who  was  a  vague  but  pleasant  young  man 
and  an  editor  of  the  "Crimson,"  had  often  made 
it  a  careless  point  not  to  recognize  Peter,  but  find 
ing  him  in  good  company  in  Boston,  he  strolled 
over. 

"Hello,  Kindred, "  he  said,  "glad  to  see  you 
around.  Come  here  often?" 

Peter,  at  a  loss  for  words,  said  nothing,  but 
colored  faintly  and  smiled. 

"Jolly  crowd,"  murmured  the  man  politely. 
Peter  eagerly  agreed,  and  after  another  silence 
introduced  Don  Mark,  whose  name  for  some  rea 
son  seemed  familiar  to  the  "Crimson"  editor. 
The  two  men  shook  hands,  and  Peter,  in  his  pride 
in  Don,  recovered  his  self-possession.  By  that 
time  the  windows  were  blue  with  dusk,  and  near 
to  them  someone  lighted  a  lamp.  The  pattern 
grew  together  again.  A  few  people  were  leaving. 


PETER    KINDRED  91 

"Hit  your  exams  all  right?"  the  " Crimson " 
editor  asked. 

"OH,  yes,"  said  Peter.  "I  had  a  little  trouble 
with  Indie  Philosophy,  but  the  rest  were  easy." 

"Battling  good  course,  that  Indie  business.  I 
had  it  last  year.  Silly  stuff,  isn't  it.  I  wonder  if 
those  people  believed  all  that  about  the  egg  and 
the  circle  and  the  rest  of  it.  What  do  you  think?" 

"Hm.    Well,  of  course  ..." 

They  were  joined  by  a  bored,  dissipated-looking 
man  in  a  dark  cutaway,  his  long  feet  encased  in 
gray  spats.  The  editor  turned  to  him. 

"Hi,  Babe." 

"0  Ronny." 

"I  say  .  .  .  the  Peawinkle  is  as  cool  as  ice,  with 
the  whole  blooming  Cambridge  police  force  out 
hunting  for  poor  old  Lem.  Perfectly  marvelous — 
what?" 

"Oh,  very  choice,  very  choice,"  said  Babe. 
"The  silly  ass  woke  me  up  at  three  in  the  morning 
with  his  damn  howling." 

"Was  that  the  racket  I  heard  along  Mount  Au 
burn  Street  Monday  night?"  Peter  asked. 

"Very  likely.  The  creature  tanked  himself 
tremendously  in  town,  and  when  he  couldn't  see 
any  more  he  nearly  murdered  a  policeman,  and 
drove  his  car  all  over  Cambridge.  So  I  guess  you 
heard  him.  He  woke  up  weeping  in  a  garbage 
can." 

"What  had  Miss  Peawinkle  to  do  with  it?" 
Peter  asked,  and  bit  his  lip  an  instant  too  late. 


92  PETER    KINDRED 

Babe  looked  at  him  coldly,  and  then  let  his  eyes 
glance  over  the  room.  He  turned  to  the  other 
man. 

"If  yon  can  get  that  little  black-eyed  vixen  yon 
had  out  last  night,  bring  her  along,  and  we  '11  take 
in  the  McGill  game  Saturday, "  he  said. 

"Perhaps  I  can,"  said  the  editor.  "Whom  yon 
with!" 

"I  think  I  asked  that  Follies  girl  once  when  I 
was  drunk,  what's  her  name?  She's  jealous  of 
your  black-eyed  girl.  We  might  have  a  little  fun, 
you  know." 

*  '  Eight  0 ! "   The  two  men  moved  away. 

"I'm  looking  for  McGill  money,"  Babe  was  say 
ing,  '  *  but  you  can 't  find  any.  I  have  an  idea  ..." 

Don  and  Peter  were  alone  again.  Across  the 
room  the  woman  with  tortoise-shell  glasses  and 
ground-gripping  shoes  was  taking  her  leave. 
Frank  was  moving  toward  them  from  a  corner, 
where  he  had  been  all  afternoon  talking  very  ear 
nestly  to  a  laughing,  blue-eyed  woman.  Peter 
was  silently  munching  a  cracker,  looking  at  the 
floor.  He  was  thinking  of  his  own  tawny  woman, 
and  that  made  him  homesick. 

He  thought  of  Don's  insistence  that  people 
make  something  of  what  they  had  been  given,  and 
smiled.  It  was  rather  splendid,  and  gave  him  an 
answer  to  Babe  and  Ronny  and  Jill,  and  he  wanted 
one.  And  that  was  Carver,  too. 

Through  March  Peter  was  given  over  to  the 


PETER   KINDRED  93 

digesting  of  Carver,  that  is,  a  Carver  already  di 
gested  by  Don  Mark,  chewed  into  a  palatable 
mush,  but  tasting,  nevertheless,  of  Mark.  For 
that  matter,  there  was  no  other  way  to  get  it  at 
all.  Peter  was  ineligible  to  any  class  Carver  con 
ducted,  and  from  the  occasional  lectures  he  at 
tended  with  Don,  he  caught  only  production,  pro 
duction,  production,  and  that  needed  translation. 
He  captured  a  certain  sense  of  immortal  life  and 
group  power,  life  breeding  life  and  fighting  for 
an  immortality  of  future  generations,  or  at  any 
rate,  an  immortality  as  long  as  the  generations 
lasted.  It  put  his  family  in  a  new  light,  and  gave 
him  a  passing  tolerance  and  affection  for  his 
father. 

This  digestion  went  on  at  all  times,  under  all 
circumstances.  With  Don  he  plowed  through  the 
mud  of  late  March,  and  rambled  with  him  on  fine 
days  around  the  countryside,  well  buttoned  and 
muffled  to  his  ears.  With  Don  he  swung  down 
Tremont  Street  at  night,  watching  the  drift  of 
faces  go  by  under  the  white  yellow  light,  sniffing 
at  the  air  to  detect  in  its  moistness  an  earnest  of 
early  spring.  In  Don's  room  and  in  his  own,  in 
Frank's  room,  at  Jimmy's  where  he  and  Don 
sometimes  ate  a  late  breakfast,  at  Wirth's,  at  the 
Touraine  where  they  sat  occasionally  late  at  night, 
leaning  their  elbows  on  the  table,  watching  the 
people  about  them,  talking  desultorily  of  this  and 
that — everywhere  and  at  all  times  he  was  taking 
hold  of  a  philosophy  and  an  attitude  that  was 


94  PETER    KINDRED 

neither  Carver  nor  Mark,  and  yet  would  be  both. 
Often  the  intense  earnestness  of  Don,  overshoot 
ing  its  aim,  amused  him,  sometimes  it  even  pro 
voked  him  to  a  mild  asperity.  Then  the  clamor  of 
their  discussion  made  waiters  and  neighbors  un 
easy  until  they  had  gone. 

"No,  sir,"  Don  said  decisively,  " enjoyment  for 
me  doesn't  sit  up  somewhere  on  a  pink  cloud,  or 
for  you  either.  It's  a  result;  a  result  of  work. 
I  enjoy  myself  when  I'm  working,  because  I'm 
pushing  somewhere.  Do  you  remember  when  I 
asked  you  what  the  Peawinkle  did  with  her  beauty 
and  you  laughed?  That  was  serious.  If  she  does 
nothing  with  it,  what  satisfaction,  what  real  satis 
faction  do  you  think  it  gives  her?" 

"Is  it  no  satisfaction  to  be  beautiful,  and  to 
have  a  million  men  flopping  around  at  your  feet?" 

"No,  no,"  said  Don  quickly.  "It's  not  a  real 
satisfaction  at  all,  it's  an  excitation,  an  erotic 
titillation.  Satisfaction  means  effort  and  accom 
plishment,  production,  a  pride  in  something  done. 
There's  no  satisfaction  in  love,  Peter,  no  true  sat 
isfaction  in  it,  just  the  flooding  and  draining  of  a 
nervous  reservoir." 

"But  what  is  a  woman  to  do  with  beauty?  She 
might  marry,  I  suppose,  and  have  a  lot  of  chil 
dren." 

"Ah,"  Don  said.  "Can  you  think  of  anything 
more  natural  for  a  woman  to  do?  And  then  her 
beauty  might  be  of  some  use." 

"I   suppose    that   if   I   were    Frank,"    Peter 


PETER   KINDRED  95 

laughed,  "I'd  shout— 'but  what  if  she  doesn't 
want  a  baby?'  " 

"And  if  you  were  Frank,"  Don  cried  gaily, 
"I'd  show  you  how  in  that  case  she  and  her  beauty 
would  be  quite  gone  some  fifty  years  before  my 
wife's  beauty  had  reached  the  third  generation." 

A  waiter  came  silently  with  oysters  and  a 
lobster,  and  Don  made  a  great  business  of  swal 
lowing  the  oysters,  while  Peter  busied  himself 
with  the  lobster,  chewing  it  as  hard  as  he  could  in 
the  hope  that  it  would  thereby  have  less  than  the 
usual  ill  effect  on  him  the  next  day. 

With  the  beat  of  April  rain  on  his  dusty  win 
dows,  and  with  the  fog  of  lights  at  evening 
through  the  wet  mist,  the  tawny  woman  sprang 
resurgent  to  his  mind,  and  did  battle  there  with 
Don  Mark,  with  Carver,  and  with  Peter's  father. 
She  it  was  who  drove  him  again  to  the  screen 
theaters,  with  a  new  unrest  and  yet  with  a  new 
satisfaction,  quieting  his  intellectual  life  with  a 
delicious  apathy.  She  caused  him  to  take  delight 
in  screen  romances,  in  heroes  and  heroines,  in  the 
fabulous  business  of  kissing,  and  the  screen  pa 
thos  of  renunciation.  The  women  stirred  him 
but  not  as  before;  they  aroused  in  him  a  quiet 
dreaminess  of  some  past  happening  in  his  own 
life,  tenuous  and  sweet.  He  started  to  read  a 
story  by  Chambers,  and  hid  the  book  covertly 
away,  fearful  lest  Don  Mark  should  see  it. 

David's  moodiness  increased  with  the  spring. 


96  PETER    KINDRED 

He  did  not  take  kindly  to  Don  Mark,  nor  to  Car 
ver  either,  and  burst  out  into  frequent  expressions 
of  bitterness  against  Harvard,  against  the  coast, 
against  what  he  chose  to  call  Peter's  growing  in 
tellectual  ossification.  They  had  several  rather 
acrid  disputes,  in  which  Peter,  enthusiastic,  but 
lacking  in  facts,  did  not  come  out  the  victor,  but 
from  which  he  emerged  with  a  sense  of  David's 
emotional  stupidity.  Now  and  then  David  was 
drunk  again;  sometimes  Peter  found  him  in  his 
room,  apologetic  after  such  a  dispute,  maudlin, 
hardly  able  to  walk  down  the  stairs.  Once  he 
vomited  on  Peter's  rug  and  Peter's  heart  was  bit 
ter  against  David  for  a  long  while  after  that.  But 
there  was  hardly  any  chance  to  come  to  the  root 
of  things ;  when  Peter  tried,  he  met  a  wall  of  re 
serve,  and  gave  up  trying,  but  he  did  find  out  that 
David  had  made  no  progress  with  his  music  what 
soever,  and  David  admitted  that  he  had  torn  up 
his  sonata.  That  time  David  seemed  eager  to 
talk,  almost  pathetically  eager,  but  Peter  had  a 
class  to  attend,  and  the  bell  rang.  When  Peter 
returned  to  his  room,  David  was  gone. 

Peter  wasted  little  time  in  missing  David,  find 
ing  Frank  and  Don  Mark  sufficient  companion 
ship.  They  stimulated  in  him  a  new  sort  of  imagi 
nation,  constructive  toward  life,  and  above  all 
critical  toward  haphazard  emotion.  The  life 
they  offered  him,  the  friendship  and  intimacy, 
was  a  cleaner  thinking,  harder  hitting  affair,  a 
broader,  sunnier  point  of  view.  Peter  began  to 


PETER   KINDRED  97 

feel  as  though  his  life  were  no  longer  lonely  and 
unkempt,  but  travelling  in  a  sort  of  sweep.  His 
house  on  Holyoke  Street  became  even  more  inti 
mate  to  him,  since  he  and  Frank  and  Don  were 
so  often  together  in  one  room  or  the  other.  He 
began  to  take  confidence  in  himself,  since  he  was 
no  longer  Peter  Kindred  alone,  but  an  integral 
part  of  a  group  of  three,  composed,  besides  him 
self,  of  two  men  in  whom  he  felt  reason  to  take 
pride.  He  began  to  reflect  a  bit  of  the  pride  him 
self,  as  though  he  were  a  deal  wiser  and  gayer 
and  better  off  after  all  than  the  chap  Smith,  who 
may  have  been  doing  well  in  business,  but  who  was 
missing  the  splendid,  careless  friendliness  of  life, 
and  the  enthusiasm  of  fiery  convictions,  beliefs, 
and  intolerances. 

And  so  the  spring  blossomed  into  lilacs,  trans 
figured  with  gay  companionship  and  insistent 
argument,  with  light-hearted  adventure  and  in 
tense  debates,  for  Peter  with  an  elated,  restless 
dreaming  of  the  tawny  woman,  and  a  sly  and 
stealthy  consideration  of  tabooed  romance.  Even 
the  tawny  woman,  upon  the  background  of  the 
house  in  Holyoke  Street  and  the  developing  Peter, 
attained  a  new,  if  remote,  but  rather  serene 
dignity. 

With  all  this  freshening,  Peter  grew  dull  to 
the  worry  of  what  might  be  ahead  of  him,  and  how 
well  he  might  be  preparing  for  it.  With  the 
lengthening  days,  the  growing  green,  the  smell  of 
new  grass  and  old,  awakening  trees,  it  was  hard 


98  PETER    KINDRED 

to  be  much  troubled  with  thoughts  of  his  own 
dependence,  hard  to  do  more  than  accept  each  day 
blithely,  and  feel  the  muscles  of  his  enthusiasm 
and  his  youth,  swelling  under  the  driving  power 
of  his  friends.  Light  voices  floated  to  him  down 
the  street  through  the  soft  spring  evenings  as  he 
leaned  out  of  his  window,  the  faint,  sensuous  mel 
ancholy  of  the  season  lulled  his  body,  leaving  his 
mind  content  and  fertile.  A  drowsy  beauty  took 
possession  of  Cambridge,  and  among  voices  and 
trees,  among  lilacs  and  the  tinkle  of  half  heard 
tunes,  Peter  moved  through  May. 

Toward  its  end  David  came  into  Peter's  room 
at  last,  and  announced  fairly  calmly  that  he  was 
through  with  college,  and  meant  to  leave  for  Eu 
rope  within  a  week.  The  very  shock  of  it  left 
Peter  without  anything  to  say,  and  that  gave 
David  a  chance  to  explain,  which  he  did  hurriedly 
at  first,  as  though  he  had  rehearsed  it  to  himself 
beforehand. 

"I'm  wasting  my  time  at  Harvard,"  he  said. 
He  tried  to  carry  it  off  contemplatively,  but  finally 
he  could  not  any  longer,  and  burst  out, — "It's  use 
less,  Peter.  To  tell  you  the  truth,  I'm  through. 
I  don't  think  you  care  a  hang,  but  I  have  to  say  it 
anyhow.  I'm  through,  that's  all." 

' '  You  're  wrong,  David, ' '  Peter  said  gently.  '  '  I 
do  care.  Why  are  you  through? — what  do  you 
mean!" 

"I  mean  this,"  David  cried  passionately,  "that 
this  place  is  too  much  for  me.  I'm  kept  down. 


PETER    KINDRED  99 

My  race  is  thrown  in  my  face.  You  yourself  .  .  . 
Well,  there  is  no  encouragement." 

"Encouragement?    I  thought  .  .  ." 

"Hang  it,  Peter,  it's  simply  that  I've  come  no 
where.  There's  nowhere  to  come  to." 

"Why,  David!" 

"Last  year  I  was  a  child,  and  I  knew  it,  but  I 
said  then  that  this  year  I'd  be  a  man.  I'm  as  full 
of  childishness  as  ever.  There's  been  nothing  to 
grasp,  nothing  to  lay  hold  of.  I've  not  grown,  not 
developed.  Last  year  I  should  have  been  con 
tent,  saying  'next  year,'  marking  time,  thinking 
of  what  I'd  do.  But  this  is  next  year,  and  I'm  no 
different.  All  my  ambitions  have  come  to  noth 
ing.  I  have  no  friends,  no  place  in  college,  no 
satisfaction  with  myself,  no  new  life.  But  that 
isn't  the  important  thing." 

"Well?" 

"It's  this.  I  can't  write  music.  I  can't  think 
music.  I  haven't  the  force  to  carry  myself 
through  anything.  I  Ve  done  nothing  all  this  year, 
nothing,  absolutely  nothing.  I  can't  write  songs, 
Peter.  The  sonata  was  the  most  puerile  thing  you 
ever  heard,  all  that  I've  done  so  far,  and  even  at 
that  I've  run  into  a  blank  wall  of  sheer  incapacity. 
Deep  in  me  somewhere  I  feel  something  big  that 
wants  to  be  heard,  and  I  sit  at  my  desk,  and  I  sit 
at  my  piano,  and  nothing  comes,  nothing  but 
drivel.  It's  heartbreaking.  And  back  of  it  all 
is  weakness.  I  haven't  the  technique,  the  sureness 
in  myself,  confidence.  I  need  a  man  to  sav 


100  PETER    KINDRED 

'Lookee  here,  young  fellow,  follow  me  and  we'll 
do  big  things  together.'  There's  no  one  here  like 
that.  No  one  at  all." 

There  was  a  silence,  and  then  Peter  spoke. 

"Aren't  you,  perhaps,  too  sensitive,  David?" 

"No,  I'm  not.  You  haven't  been  cut  by  the  men 
in  your  own  line  of  work  because  you're  a  Jew. 
You  haven't  been  looking  desperately  for  some 
big  thing  to  grasp  hold  of,  and  then  found  only 
little  dried-up  facts.  You  haven't  been  up  night 
after  night  until  dawn  racking  your  brains  and 
your  body  and  every  last  bit  of  you  for  a  spark  of 
something  real.  You  haven't  been  alone  as  I 
have.  And  I  wouldn't  care,  Peter,  I  wouldn't  care 
for  the  loneliness,  but  God  in  heaven,  if  I  were 
only  getting  ahead!" 

"I  know.    For  awhile  I  ..." 

"No,  it's  not  the  same  thing.  You're  not  trying 
to  express  yourself  as  I  am.  But  I  don't  know 
what  there  is  in  me  to  express.  With  whom  shall 
I  grow  here  at  Harvard?  The  big  men  won't  have 
me.  At  what  shall  I  work?  Exercises?  I'll 
never  learn  what  music  is  and  what  life  is  and 
what  the  one  has  to  do  with  the  other  by  writing 
dum  da  de  dum  a  dozen  different  ways  on  a  scrap 
of  paper. 

"I  have  to  get  away,  Peter.  This  place  is  pur 
poseless.  If  I  stay  here,  and  have  luck,  some  day 
I  may  be  the  music  teacher  of  a  boys'  school  in 
New  England.  That  won't  do.  I  must  get  where 
there  is  a  purpose  to  things,  and  live  with  people 


PETER   KINbRt!fl  101 

who  believe,  and  who  can  strike  fire  in  me.  Then 
I  can  fill  myself  with  it,  and  let  it  work  out  in  me 
its  own  way.  But  here — why,  man,  they  just  dod 
der  along  at  exercises  all  their  lives.  They  might 
as  well  be  carpenters." 

"Somewhere  in  America  there  is  fire,  I  think." 
"Flame,  but  no  fire.  Men  are  either  hungry,  or 
well  fed.  If  they're  well  fed,  they  are  satisfied. 
If  they're  hungry  they  howl  and  fight  and  rage 
around  until  they're  fed,  and  then  they  rest,  and 
smile,  and  sleep  after  dinner,  and  grow  fat." 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  summer  sun,  heating  the  roof  tops  of  the 
east,  and  staring  out  across  the  sea  from  its 
position  directly  above  the  uncomfortable  towers 
of  New  York,  saw  David  in  mid-ocean,  and  Peter 
below  itself,  at  home.  Of  the  two  I  should  deem 
Peter  the  more  uncomfortable,  and  David  the  un- 
happier.  It  bade  fair  to  be  a  hot  summer ;  Peter 
was  never  content  in  New  York,  and  the  adven 
tures  of  the  summer  before  added  definitely  to  his 
discontent.  He  caught  himself  listening  to  the 
fog  horns  of  ships  as  the  sounds  drifted  from  the 
river  and  faintly  from  the  bay  below,  and  found 
himself  dreaming  idly  of  the  sea,  of  ships  and 
sails,  of  women,  and  of  old  cities.  But  his  mind 
was  tranced  in  a  different  manner  than  it  had  been 
in  the  spring,  for  it  was  an  uneasy  absent-minded 
ness,  shot  with  small  revolts  and  occasional  futile 
beatings  at  the  bare  walls  of  the  summer.  The 
enforced  intimacy  with  his  family  was  not,  per 
haps,  quite  as  unpleasant  to  Peter  as  it  was  a 
decided  shock  both  to  Peter  and  his  family  to  dis- 

102 


PETER    KINDRED  103 

cover  each  other.  The  two  elder  Kindreds  had 
perforce  stood  still  for  many  years,  and,  save  for 
a  certain  stubborn  settling  process,  were  much  the 
same  as  they  had  been  ten  years  before.  Edith, 
in  an  impressionable  age,  had  grown  with  her  gen 
eration,  but  gradually  enough  for  her  parents  to 
accustom  themselves  to  the  change.  Peter,  how 
ever,  shooting  off  in  another  direction  entirely, 
presented  a  startling  and  sudden  metamorphosis, 
for  you  must  consider  that  he  had  not  spent  any 
considerable  time  in  intimacy  with  his  family  since 
he  had  entered  college. 

Edith  was  anxious  to  make  some  sort  of  hero 
out  of  Peter  at  first,  but  he  would  fit  into  no  pos 
sible  heroic  mould,  as  she  understood  heroes,  and 
because  of  his  very  cutting  scorn  of  all  the  heroes 
she  knew  and  reverenced,  she  was  forced  at  last 
to  consider  him  an  anarchist  and  no  hero  at  all. 
In  turn,  Peter  gave  her  no  serious  consideration, 
thinking  that  she  lived  in  a  fashion  not  only  ob 
viously  thoughtless,  but  of  no  use  to  him  whatso 
ever,  either  to  study  or  to  criticize  more  than  in 
passing.  So  the  two  went  their  separate  roads, 
with  no  remarkable  good  will  toward  each  other, 
but  with  growing  sarcasm  making  itself  more  and 
more  evident  toward  the  end  of  the  summer,  a 
sarcasm,  however,  without  much  rancor. 

His  father  and  mother,  from  his  role  of  depend 
ent,  might  not  be  so  lightly  regarded.  They  were 
prepared  to  find  their  son  differing  somewhat 
from  themselves,  in  his  treatment  of  certain  phe- 


104  PETER    KINDRED 

nomena  of  his  generation,  just  as  Edith  differed 
from  them  in  her  free  and  more  inconsequential 
attitude  toward  sex,  toward  modesty  and  be 
havior  and  the  like.  But  they  were  not  prepared 
to  have  sex  in  general  probed  very  deeply,  or 
modesty,  or  any  questions  they  considered  to  have 
answered  themselves  for  their  own  generation; 
they  were  not  prepared  to  have  their  own  behavior 
questioned,  or  their  morality,  or  any  ancient  and 
honorable  institution  they  may  have  supported. 
Peter,  coming  from  an  atmosphere  of  nihilism, 
where  nothing  was  sacred  unless  it  was  logical 
and  vehement,  was  a  disturbing  element,  and  was 
in  turn  disturbed  to  find  it  necessary  to  defend 
his  attitude  at  all,  and  baffled  at  the  unreflective 
but  stubborn  opposition.  It  seemed  to  him  al 
most  impossible  to  discuss  any  matter  clearly 
with  his  family,  for  they  were  none  of  them  able 
to  see  anything  impersonally,  that  is,  separate 
and  apart  from  its  effect  upon  themselves,  al 
though  in  justice  he  was  forced  to  confess  that  his 
father  was  not  as  bad  in  that  respect  as  his 
mother  and  his  sister.  But  what  his  father  gained 
in  logical  powers,  he  lost  in  being  both  impatient 
and  unimaginative  and  cursed  with  the  anathema 
of  the  middle  class,  a  hard-worked  but  full-bellied 
and  unbitten  spirit. 

Mrs.  Kindred  took  sides  with  Edith  inconti 
nently  against  Peter's  outlandish  ideas,  but  his 
father  kept  some  slight  semblance  of  a  judicial 
spirit,  enough,  at  least,  to  listen  to  Peter  until  his 


PETER   KINDRED  105 

patience  gave  out.  Then  he  would  bang  his  fist 
down  on  the  table,  frightening  his  wife  and  daugh 
ter  into  a  temporary  quiet,  and  order  Peter  to  be 
still.  Peter  was  unwilling  to  combat  his  father's 
authority,  somewhat  from  a  habit  of  obedience 
that  could  not  be  so  lightly  put  aside,  and  some 
what,  too,  from  a  sense  of  dependence  on  him. 
The  dependence  irked  him  sorely,  and  it  bothered 
him  that  he  was  forced  to  be  both  dependent  and 
rebellious,  but  he  was  not  brave  enough  by  half 
to  renounce  that  dependence  and  accept  the  con 
sequences.  He  wanted  to  go  back  to  college  in 
the  fall ;  he  wanted  time  to  think  and  time  to  grow, 
more  than  he  cared  for  the  satisfaction  of  assert 
ing  himself.  To  his  mother  and  sister  his  attitude 
was  unintelligible,  but  they  thought  it  a  passing 
phase  in  his  growth,  quite  naturally  coincident 
with  what  they  took  to  be  his  wild  college  years. 
To  his  father,  however,  he  was  a  source  of  deeper 
dissatisfaction  and  puzzlement  and  disappoint 
ment,  for  his  father  had  sent  him  vaguely  to  col 
lege  thinking  to  make  him  a  gentleman,  and  so 
far  he  had  come  out  as  his  mother  said,  an  anar 
chist.  Once  or  twice  he  thought  of  taking  him  out 
of  college  and  putting  him  to  work,  but  since  Peter 
could  graduate  in  another  year  by  working  a  bit 
harder,  he  decided  to  go  through  with  it.  Once  he 
nearly  sent  Peter  from  his  table  entirely.  It  was 
on  the  occasion  of  a  visit  to  the  Kindreds  by  a 
young  married  couple;  the  woman  was  big  with 
child,  and  no  mention  was  made  of  her  condition, 


106  PETER    KINDRED 

and  no  mention  of  children,  the  Kindreds  trying 
not  to  see  anything  unusual  in  the  woman's  ap 
pearance,  and  the  visitors  trying  to  display  no 
self-consciousness.  Peter,  from  diffidence,  did  as 
his  family  did,  but  the  next  day  argued  the  matter 
at  table. 

"Why  isn't  she  to  be  congratulated? "  he  asked. 
"She  will  be  soon,  at  any  rate." 

"That  is  not  table  talk,"  his  mother  said 
sharply. 

"Why  not?  There's  nothing  immoral  about  it. 
Why  should  a  woman  be  ashamed  to  have  a  child? 
It's  rather  fine.  Carver  .  .  ." 

"You're  indelicate,  to  say  the  least,"  Edith 
said. 

"Oh,  why  be  so  fussy  about  people's  feelings?" 
Peter  exclaimed.  "They  wouldn't  have  so  many 
feelings  if  they  thought  more  about  them." 

"That  will  do,  Peter,"  his  father  said  quietly. 
"You  are  not  qualified  to  criticize  our  feelings 
about  things.  We  understand  them  better  than 
you  do." 

"Yes,  sir.  But  certainly  it's  no  secret  that 
she's  to  have  a  child,  and  she  must  be  pretty  glad 
about  it.  So  why  be  so  secretive?" 

"I  think  you're  perfectly  disgusting,  Peter!" 
cried  Edith.  "You  needn't  try  to  be  so  smart 
about  everything!" 

"Really,  dear,"  his  mother  added,  "you  are 
very  silly.  Things  like  that  are  holy;  they  simply 
are  not  talked  about." 


PETER   KINDRED  107 

"It's  just  the  holy  things  that  ought  to  be  talked 
about.  If  I  had  a  child  I'd  give  a  party  as  soon  as 
I  knew  I  was  going  to  have  it." 

"Peter!" 

Mrs.  Kindred  turned  to  her  husband.  "No," 
she  said,  "I  can't  listen  to  much  more  of  this.  It 
isn't  right.  And  Edith  here  .  .  .  If  you  don't  put 
your  foot  down  pretty  soon  ..." 

"I  pity  your  poor  wife's  feelings  with  you  for 
a  husband,"  said  Edith. 

"I'll  never  marry  a  woman  with  feelings!" 
Petei  answered  hotly. 

"Be  quiet,  Peter!"  cried  his  father.  "I've 
heard  enough.  If  you  can't  think  of  anything  de 
cent  to  talk  about,  keep  still." 

Peter's  declaration  of  belief  and  faith  in  the 
form  of  his  intention  to  marry  no  woman  with 
feelings,  was  more  of  a  surprise  to  himself  than 
to  Edith,  who  was  not  paying  much  attention  to 
what  he  said,  but  to  what  effect  her  remarks  made 
on  him.  He  had  never  thought  of  marrying  any 
one,  of  any  kind,  and  yet  the  announcement  of  the 
sort  of  woman  he  did  not  intend  to  marry  popped 
into  his  mouth  as  naturally  as  though  it  were  quite 
at  home  there.  There  were  other  announcements, 
loo,  that  kept  jumping  to  his  tongue,  surprising 
himself  more  than  his  family,  thoughts  that  were 
only  becoming  articulate  out  of  a  brew  of 
years. 

His  father  did  not  ask  him  to  work  during  the 
summer,  so  he  did  not,  but  spent  the  time  in  read- 


108  PETER    KINDRED 

ing,  in  writing  letters,  in  wandering  idly  abont, 
resting,  arguing,  and  rebelling.  It  was  a  weary 
sort  of  life,  with  no  point  in  it,  and  as  hot  days 
followed  each  other  across  the  sky,  and  the  asphalt 
grew  soft  and  sticky  under  the  sun,  the  breathless 
nights  almost  sleepless,  Peter  cursed  his  life  and 
wished  that  he  had  done  anything,  anything  other 
than  what  he  had  done,  wished  that  he  were  in 
Paris  with  David,  in  the  West  with  Don  Mark, 
anywhere  save  beneath  the  intolerably  close  roof 
of  his  home.  There  were  nothing  but  small  things 
to  do,  and  to  wait  as  patiently  as  possible  for  the 
fall. 

In  August  the  Kindreds  moved  to  a  seaside  re 
sort  for  two  weeks,  and  from  there  Peter  wrote  to 
Don  Mark. 

"In  the  surf,"  he  wrote,  "grown  men  and 
women  are  like  children,  making  up  the  silliest 
games  without  either  beginning  or  ending,  jump 
ing  about  with  a  fearful  display  of  energy,  and 
splashing  and  doing  nothing.  An  hour  afterward 
they  are  slick  and  dignified  and  full  of  little  im 
portances.  There's  a  thought  in  there  somewhere 
that  I  can't  dig  out,  so  I'll  send  it  to  you.  I  can't 
dig  out  very  much,  for  the  heat  we've  been  having, 
and  the  general  home  atmosphere  have  wilted  me 
considerably.  One  comes  suddenly  into  a  world 
of  intensely  personal  reactions  to  everything; 
mother  and  Edith  seem  incapable  of  thinking  of 
anything  at  all  except  as  it  may  affect  them,  and 
then  they  have  feelings.  ...  I  am  tired  to  death 


PETER   KINDRED  109 

of  feelings.    Has  everyone  in  the  world  feelings, 
but  you  and  I  and  Frank? 

"What  do  you  hear  from  him  since  he  grad 
uated?  He  hasn't  written  me  a  word.  David  is 
happily  settled  in  Paris,  in  an  attic,  I  believe,  in 
the  Quarter,  something  he  has  furnished  extrava 
gantly,  no  doubt.  ...  I  am  fairly  eaten  with  long 
ing  to  be  in  Cambridge  again,  to  smell  the  autumn 
fires  and  the  leaves  on  the  ground.  When  will 
you  be  there?  I'll  probably  go  up  a  bit  early.  .  .  . 
Think  of  running  up  the  creaky  old  stairs  to  find 
you  sitting  there!" 

Later  in  the  summer  he  read  again  Carver's 
Religion  WortJi  Having  and  became  definitely  a 
Carverian.  Unconsciously  his  family  shaped  his 
resolves,  his  family  and  its  friends.  He  thought 
that  they  had  nothing  to  bind  them  to  life  from 
one  day  to  another  excepting  either  curiosity  or 
sexual  excitement.  They  were  individuals  with 
out  a  religion,  easily  thrown  into  small  panics, 
always  in  a  flutter  of  some  emotion  or  other. 
Peter  decided  that  his  mother  lived  from  one  day 
to  another  from  pure  curiosity  for  gossip,  and 
a  horror  of  nothingness. 

In  this  welter  of  helplessness  Peter  climbed  the 
crag  of  the  Religion  Worth  Having  and  perched 
there  in  the  sun,  watching  the  faithless  moving 
below  him,  with  pity  and  contempt  so  marked  as 
to  make  himself  quite  intolerable  to  his  family. 
Edith,  in  a  letter  to  her  very  most  intimate  friend, 
described  him. 


110  PETER    KINDRED 

" Peter  gets  sillier  and  sillier,"  she  wrote, 
"and,  my  dear,  he's  quite  impossible  to  live  with. 
His  latest  is  somebody  by  the  name  of  Carver, 
who  wrote  a  book  called  The  Religion  Worth 
Having.  Did  you  ever  read  it!  It's  the  dryest 
thing.  Peter  gave  it  to  me  to  read,  and  when  I 
asked  him  what  it  meant  he  looked  at  me  as 
though  he  wanted  to  bite  me  and  began  to  talk 
like  a  regular  old  owl  about  how  you're  alive  if 
you  live,  and  dead  if  you  don't  live,  and  all  you 
have  is  life  anyhow,  and  so  you  have  to  live  and 
that's  why  there's  a  state.  Isn't  it  perfectly  fool 
ish?  I  laughed  right  in  his  face,  and  he  was  so 
angry ! ' ' 

Peter  wrote  to  Don  in  a  different  tone. 

1 1  Life,  life  ..."  he  scribbled,  "I  think  I  see  it. 
There  is  no  greater  good  as  far  as  we  know,  and 
what  persists  then  in  living  must  be  right,  and 
what  dies,  wrong.  That  which  makes  for  life 
must  be  moral.  I  get  more  clearly  your  point  now, 
that  Carver  means  not  the  individual  life  of  three 
score  and  ten,  but  generations  upon  generations 
of  life.  And  still  I  do  not  quite  understand  the 
attitude  he  would  have  the  individual  life  take  to 
ward  the  state.  Suppose  the  state  demands  the 
individual  life  to  be  given  up  in  order  that  the 
state  may  live?  What  then?  It  seems  to  me  that 
he  contradicts  himself  there." 

To  which  Don  wrote  back  a  long  letter. 

"I  have  just  come  in  from  a  solemn  walk,  in 
which  I  decided  the  fate  of  the  trades  unions,  and 


PETER    KINDRED  111 

the  state  of  my  own  soul.  It  was  good  to  hear 
from  you  again ;  I  am  answering  at  once. 

"Carver  does  mean  the  individual  life,  but  to 
my  mind,  that  life  as  expressed  not  only  in  its  own 
self,  but  in  the  generations  of  its  descendants,  each 
one  of  whom  expresses  some  bit  of  it,  and  as  an 
expression  itself  of  generations  of  ancestors.  In 
other  words,  and  you've  heard  this  before,  a  man 
is  longer  lived,  and  thereby  richer,  whose  person 
ality  will  be  carried  on  a  long  while  after  his  body 
is  dead,  by  his  children,  and  their  children.  After 
all,  we  are  most  intent  upon  immortality.  Even 
more  than  we  are  on  life.  If  I  could  send  a  great 
name  into  history  for  thousands  of  years  by  dying 
to-day,  do  you  think  I'd  hesitate?  And  yet,  if 
my  state  fell  apart,  where  would  be  my  immor 
tality?  Where  are  the  heroes  of  Ethiopia?  Don't 
laugh,  I'm  serious.  Besides,  alive,  I  can't  com 
pete  alone  with  other  groups,  but  as  the  member 
of  a  strong  group  I  can,  and  successfully. 

"There  are  only  a  handful  of  us  whose  names 
will  go  down.  For  the  million  others,  there  is 
still  the  sure  immortality  we  know  of,  sons  and 
daughters.  But  for  them  to  live,  just  as  for  us 
to  live,  there  is  need  of  a  strong  state,  first  and 
foremost,  and  they  must  be  given  a  strong  posi 
tion  in  that  state  if  we  can  give  it  them,  or  at  any 
rate,  no  handicap.  The  children  of  some  of  us 
will  be  great,  even  if  we  are  not. 

"That,  I  think,  is  what  Carver  means.  We 
must  be  willing  to  give  our  lives  to  the  state,  if 


112  PETER    KINDRED 

our  lives  will  enable  the  state  and  our  chil 
dren  and  their  children  to  live  and  remember 
us." 

Peter  jealously  guarded  his  thoughts  from  his 
parents ;  he  knew  they  would  consider  them  ridic 
ulous,  and  despaired  of  being  able  to  prove  any 
thing  to  them  other  than  what  they  were  able  to 
feel.  Yet  when  he  came  to  analyze  the  lives  of 
his  mother  and  father,  he  could  put  his  hand  on 
nothing  definitely  wrong.  His  father  worked,  as 
any  man  should  work,  and  cared  for  his  family  as 
any  man  should.  His  mother  attended  to  the 
home  economics.  What  else  was  there  for  them 
to  do,  even  under  a  stern  Carverian  system  of 
production? 

"What  should  I  do,  Mister  Smarty?"  asked 
Edith.  "Stay  home  from  dances  and  parties  to 
read  about  labor  unions  and  things!" 

"Yes,"  said  Peter. 

"That  would  be  pleasant,  wouldn't  it!"  Edith 
exclaimed.  "I  suppose  you  think  that  woman  yon 
went  with  on  the  ship  last  summer  sat  in  her 
cabin  and  read  philosophy  all  day!" 

"It  would  be  a  holy  sight  better  for  your  chil 
dren  if  you  did,  and  you  might  know  some 
thing  more  than  love  stories  then,  and  dance 
steps." 

"I'd  never  have  any  children  at  that  rate," 
Edith  said  brazenly,  and  then  blushed  fiery  red 
and  blamed  it  at  once  on  Peter.  "I  think  you're 
perfectly  horrid!"  she  cried. 


PETER    KINDRED  113 

Here  then,  was  an  answer  strangely  in  his  own 
coin,  and  it  silenced  him.  And  yet  he  knew  well 
enough  that  Edith  had  no  passion  for  children, 
and  that  it  was  not  for  a  large  family  of  her  own 
that  she  danced  and  gallivanted.  Yet  Carver  him 
self  would  admit  the  primary  importance  of  be 
ing  married. 

And  here  then,  again,  Peter  failed  to  see 
through  the  fog  of  aimlessness,  the  slow  drifting 
movement  of  the  people  about  him,  to  the  little 
understood  desires  which  actuated  that  movement, 
the  dim  faith,  the  jumbled  belief.  And  again  Peter 
would  admit  of  no  compromise,  but  saw  only  a 
stark  right  or  a  dismal  wrong.  It  was  not  enough 
that  men  should  work  out  their  lives  to  produce 
for  their  families  as  best  they  could,  and  that 
women  should  marry  and  breed.  Folk  were  either 
earnest  Carverians,  or  they  had  feelings,  and  were 
nothing. 

"Well,"  he  said  to  Edith  scornfully,  "perhaps 
it  would  be  better  if  you  didn't  have  any, 
then." 

But  that  was  wrong,  too,  of  course,  and  he  knew 
it  was. 

It  was  a  resolved  Peter  who  opened  wide  his 
arms  to  his  old  room  in  Cambridge  again,  as 
firmly  resolved  as  Don  Mark,  a  Peter  who  was  a 
man,  or  very  nearly  one,  with  true  dislikes  and  the 
beginning  of  a  morality.  The  summer  had 
crowded  him,  and  that  had  hurried  his  digestion ; 


114  PETER    KINDRED 

with  the  taste  of  thoughtlessness,  of  drifting,  of 
undetermined  living  in  his  memory,  he  cleaned 
and  swept  his  mind  of  all  of  it,  and  then  opened 
it  eagerly  to  violent  belief  again,  but  with  some 
thing  more  definite  to  criticize  than  he  had  ever 
had  before.  And  yet,  in  the  wind  of  Cambridge, 
in  the  familiar  mustiness  of  the  house  on  Holyoke, 
the  gray,  level  streets,  the  low  frame  dwellings, 
the  bars  of  yellow  sunlight  on  Mount  Auburn 
Street,  and  in  his  friend's  boisterous  welcome  and 
his  crushing  handshake  Peter  found  that  the  sum 
mer  had  fled  him  almost  before  he  looked  to  see 
it  go. 

But  Frank,  a  graduate,  was  in  the  north,  and 
David  was  in  Paris,  Don  Mark  had  moved  to 
Frank's  old  room  across  the  hall  from  Peter;  they 
missed  Frank's  noisy  blasphemy  more  than  they 
would  have  thought  possible.  All  Cambridge 
seemed  quieter  for  lack  of  it,  and  the  house  on 
Holyoke  was  unusually  still,  as  though  it  wrere 
listening  for  an  echo  of  his  feet  thundering  up 
the  stair.  Peter  missed  David,  but  secretly  and 
occasionally,  at  times  when  he  felt  tired  and  con 
tent  and  would  have  liked  to  smoke  while  David 
played. 

He  enrolled  at  once  with  Carver,  but  in  order 
to  effect  the  proper  distribution  of  his  courses,  so 
that  he  might  graduate  at  the  end  of  the  year,  he 
was  forced  to  fill  his  schedule  as  full  as  it  would 
hold  with  other  courses  in  other  departments.  It 
was  with  a  faint  chill  of  apprehension  that  he  set 


PETER    KINDRED  115 

his  alarm  for  half  past  six,  and  made  an  oath  that 
he  would  really  make  that  hour  his  rising  time. 
But  Don  was  up  at  six,  and  there  was  small  chance 
of  Peter  lying  abed  much  later,  for  if  he  tried  to, 
Don  came  in  and  dumped  him  unceremoniously 
onto  the  floor,  or  stole  his  covers  and  left  him 
gradually  to  freeze,  which  was  worse. 

Acting  upon  a  decision  they  had  made  in  the 
spring  of  the  year  before,  the  two  bought  season 
tickets  to  the  Symphony,  Peter  surrendering  his 
savings  of  the  summer  and  mortgaging  his  fu 
ture.  Before  the  concerts  started  the  ticket  gave 
Peter  a  solemn  feeling  of  aristocratic  culture,  and 
the  shadow  of  excitement  at  the  thought  of  the 
various  pleasant  things  there  were  for  him  to 
taste  of,  if  he  wanted  to. 

The  autumn  was  given  up  to  a  consideration  of 
all  that  the  summer  had  brought  forward,  all  the 
ideas,  the  questions  and  the  decisions,  to  hard 
work,  and  to  enthusiasm  for  Carver.  But  since 
Peter  had  come  to  the  gist  of  his  remarks  long 
before  he  heard  them,  the  lectures  as  a  whole 
were  a  disappointment.  He  did  not  have  the  keen 
interest  in  technical  and  theoretical  economics 
that  Don  had;  he  cared  for  the  subject  only  in  a 
general  way,  and  as  it  affected  himself,  but  the 
spirit  that  actuated  the  lecturer  grew  big  in  Peter, 
until  he  even  went  so  far  once  or  twice  as  to  con 
tradict  Don  Mark,  and  at  those  times  he  very 
craftily  quoted  from  his  lectures. 

Peter  was  more  curious  about  women  than  he 


116  PETER    KINDRED 

was  about  trades  unions  or  tariff  issues;  there 
was  a  large  part  of  him  that  sought  earnestly 
after  womankind,  and  yet  was  puzzled  by  them 
and  suspicious  of  them.  The  heroine  of  his  imag 
ining  was  giving  place  to  another  type,  that  was, 
however,  essentially  vague  in  his  mind,  a  woman 
embodying  beauty,  a  vacuum  where  her  feelings 
should  have  been,  possessed  of  logic,  and  chosen 
with  an  eye  to  her  offspring.  He  had  never  en 
countered  any  such  woman,  and  his  conception 
of  her  was  purely  verbal.  His  attitude  had 
changed  toward  the  pretty  faces  that  passed  him 
on  the  street,  almost  without  his  realizing  it,  and 
he  wondered  if  they  were  capable  of  thinking  and 
if  they  did  think,  instead  of  wondering  if  they 
were  capable  of  loving  and  if  they  did  love.  The 
romances  that  occasionally  danced  attendance 
through  his  mind  on  some  particularly  pleasant- 
looking  woman,  no  longer  ended  at  courtship,  but 
began  after  marriage,  and  ended  at  the  ripe  old 
age  of  ninety  or  thereabouts,  with  a  golden 
wedding. 

"I  wouldn't  much  care,"  Peter  said  seriously. 
" After  all,  it's  not  so  fearfully  important  if  a 
woman  is  pretty.  It's  just  a  sort  of  selfishness 
that  makes  a  man  want  to  own  a  pretty  woman 
.  .  .  don't  you  think?  I'd  want  one  busy  with 
some  real  work,  that  would  fit  in  with  mine.  .  .  . 
I  wouldn't  want  to  have  to  be  thinking  about  her 
face  all  the  time.  I'd  want  to  be  able  to  discuss 
things  with  her,  and  not  have  her  go  off  into  a  fit 


PETER   KINDRED  117 

right  away.    Anyhow,  she'd  have  to  be  intelligent 
enough  to  bring  up  her  own  children." 

"How  many  children?"  asked  Don  solemnly, 
blowing  a  ring  of  smoke  toward  the  ceiling. 

"Jinks,  I  don't  know,"  Peter  answered  ear 
nestly,  and  then,  catching  sight  of  Don's  expres 
sion,  grinned  sheepishly. 

"Well,  Peter,  old  philosopher,  we'll  have  to  see 
what  we  can  do  for  you."  Don  sighed,  and 
stretched  himself. 

"Come  to  the  Waldorf  and  I'll  feed  you  an  egg 
sandwich,  while  we  think  it  over  a  bit." 

They  walked  up  the  dark,  windy  street  together 
toward  the  lamp  light  of  Massachusetts,  their  foot 
steps  sounding  thin  and  clear  in  the  frosty  night 
air. 

"No,  but  seriously,  Don,"  Peter  was  saying,  "I 
think  this  business  of  love  is  awfully  overdone.  I 
mean,  it's  all  very  well  for  a  time,  but  marriage 
is  a  different  thing;  of  course  I'd  have  to  care  a 
good  deal  about  a  woman  ..." 

"Naturally,"  Don  said.  "One  wouldn't  want 
to  marry  a  slut,  you  know  ...  a  marriage  should 
be  a  contract  between  two  sensible  people  and  the 
state  in  which  the  two  people  agree  to  support 
their  children." 

"Of  course,"  Peter  said.  "The  children  are 
everything.  I  think  that  women  without  children 
are  pretty  bad  .  .  .  that  is,  if  they're  married." 

"Well,"  Don  said,  "you  can't  always  have  chil 
dren." 


118  PETER    KINDRED 

"Bother,"  said  Peter,  "I  wouldn't  live  with  a 
woman  if  I  couldn't." 

" Still,"  Don  argued,  "you  might  be  married 
and  poor  and  want  to  wait." 

"Then,"  Peter  answered,  "I'd  sleep  in  another 
room." 

"You  might  find  it  a  bit  heroic,"  Don  said 
mildly. 

"Don't  be  absurd,"  said  Peter. 

They  went  to  their  first  Symphony  concert  to 
gether.  At  the  last  moment  Peter  could  not  decide 
how  to  dress,  and  was  torn  between  the  desire  to 
make  a  great  deal  of  the  evening  by  wearing  a 
dinner  coat,  and  the  feeling  that  he  ought  not  be 
so  impressed,  and  should  wear  whatever  he  had 
on.  Don,  however,  taking  it  as  a  matter  of  course, 
was  wearing  a  soft  shirt,  and  so  Peter  decided 
that  he  was  amply  dressed,  and  outshone  Don  by 
the  shiny  margin  of  a  stiff  collar. 

At  the  Square,  they  climbed  into  a  well-worn 
trolley  that  presently  set  out  down  Massachusetts 
for  Boston.  Don  had  an  air  of  starting  on 
a  lark;  Peter  felt  more  like  an  adventure,  his 
state  of  mind  a  mingle  of  excitement  and  cul 
tured  solemnity  as  befitted  the  occasion.  He 
felt  that  he  was  taking  a  definite  step  toward  a 
liberal  appreciation  of  things,  and  stepping  well 
out  of  his  family  to  do  it.  He  was  opening  closed 
chambers  in  himself,  and  would  presently  fill  them 
with  a  treasure  reserved  for  a  few.  He  started 


PETER    KINDRED  119 

to  think  "If  the  folks  were  to  see  me  now"  with 
a  thrill  of  satisfaction,  but  grew  immediately  sub 
dued  and  faintly  depressed  at  the  realization  that 
if  his  folks  were  to  see  him  on  his  way  to  the  Sym 
phony,  his  father  would  be  furious  at  his  extrava 
gance. 

The  trolley  sped  past  the  lighted  windows  of 
the  shops  facing  the  Yard,  ricochetted  around  a 
curve,  and  shrilled  into  darkness,  swaying,  its 
glass  windows  rattling.  Finally  it  came  smoothly 
into  the  light  of  Central  Square  again,  and  became 
filled  to  the  brim  with  people.  Peter  tried  to  pick 
out  men  and  women  whom  he  thought  might  be  go 
ing  to  the  Symphony;  there  were  two  Harvard 
men,  and  several  elderly,  austere  couples.  They 
went  on  into  darkness  again,  and  bumped  over 
cobblestones  with  a  great  crashing  and  rattling 
of  windows,  past  the  looming  hulks  of  quiet  freight 
cars,  marked  by  far-off  red  and  green  lights,  and 
so  on  over  the  deep  blackness  of  the  river,  a  wide 
sweep  of  utter  dark  below  them,  caught  here  and 
there  in  the  glimmer  of  starlight,  and  in  the  shiv 
ering  pools  of  drowned  copper  which  were  the 
reflections  of  the  long  and  regular  arcs  of  lamps 
that  dwindled  along  the  opposite  river  banks  and 
spun  across  Kendal  Bridge. 

Peter  was  struck  by  the  lofty  severity  of  the 
great  hall,  and  then  by  the  type  of  people  about 
him,  in  fairly  plain  dress,  old  and  contented  peo 
ple  with  sharp  New  England  features,  younger 
men  and  women  preparing  to  listen  intelligently. 


120  PETER    KINDRED 

Young  and  old,  many  seemed  to  know  each  other 
and  bowed  and  smiled  and  whispered,  but  evi 
dently  they  came  to  hear  the  orchestra  and  their 
acquaintances  were  incidental.  There  was  noth 
ing  gorgeous  or  astounding,  save  only  perhaps  the 
multitude  of  black-coated  musicians  in  ascending 
rows  upon  the  stage;  there  was  no  flourish  of 
jewelry  and  bosoms,  no  fanfare  of  society,  but  a 
fairly  quiet  gathering  of  people  from  their 
homes  and  their  dinner  tables  where  they  had 
eaten  in  peace  with  their  families  about  them, 
with  no  worry  at  all  about  their  appearance, 
or  their  friends*  appearance,  or  their  daughters' 
either. 

The  multitude  of  musicians,  after  preliminary 
discordant  tuning,  fell  silent;  a  bell  tinkled, 
and  Dr.  Muck  sidled  out  of  a  door  and 
crossed  to  the  front  of  the  stage;  the  audi 
ence  broke  into  polite  applause;  the  musician, 
after  bowing  gravely  a  moment  or  so,  stepped 
up  on  his  box  and  faced  the  orchestra,  tapped 
his  baton  on  the  music  stand  before  him, 
raised  it  quietly,  and  brought  it  down  again.  An 
oboe  wailed,  and  Peter  heard  his  first  symphonic 
music.  With  the  initial  crashing  ensemble  his 
heart  leaped  out  after  the  music,  and  was  pres 
ently  distanced  and  left  to  run  idly  after,  washed 
and  whelmed  in  rhythms  and  harmonies  until  it 
grew  tired.  Then  Peter  stared  about  him  at  the 
intent  faces  of  the  audience,  at  the  graceless  Greek 
statues  in  their  niches  above  his  head,  and  let  his 


PETER   KINDRED  121 

thoughts  run  after  his  heart  to  bring  it  back  again, 
which  is  a  fairly  unintelligible  way  of  saying  that 
he  thought  of  no  more  than  little  personal  things 
about  his  work,  his  family,  his  room,  his  finances, 
a  collar  button  he  had  lost.  When  he  had  got  his 
heart  back  to  him  again  and  was  growing  restless, 
the  first  movement  came  to  an  end,  and  he 
breathed  deeply  and  changed  the  position  of  his 
knees.  Don,  beside  him,  did  likewise. 

After  the  Symphony  they  walked  together  along 
the  marble  corridor  at  the  side  of  the  hall,  to 
the  wider  entrance  at  the  front.  There  they 
found  a  group  of  Harvard  men,  some  of  whom 
they  knew,  dressed  variously  in  dinner  coats  and 
soft  shirts.  The  front  hall  was  filled  with  men 
smoking;  the  elderly  men  discussed  the  sym 
phony,  and  in  different  groups  the  Harvard  men 
did  likewise;  the  middle-aged  Boston  men  walked 
up  and  down  and  talked  of  all  manner  of  things. 
Peter  and  Don  went  back  to  the  side  corridor  and 
walked  up  and  down. 

6 ' Well,  well/'  said  Don  suddenly,  "look  there!" 
Peter  looked  up,  startled,  and  saw  coming  to 
ward  them  the  slim  young  woman  Don  had 
pointed  out  to  him  enviously  at  the  tea  party  of 
the  year  before.  It  was  with  a  shock  of  recogni 
tion  that  he  saw  her,  much  the  same  as  he  had  seen 
her  then,  pink-cheeked  and  formless,  her  reddish- 
brown  hair  drawn  tightly  up  on  her  head,  her 
eyes  encircled  by  tortoise-shell  glasses,  and  low- 
heeled  ground-gripping  shoes  on  her  feet.  He 


122  PETER    KINDRED 

drew  an  involuntary  breath  of  surprise;  as  she 
passed  he  caught  a  glimpse  of  gray  eyes  behind 
the  glasses,  of  a  saucy  nose,  and  a  firm  mouth. 
With  her  were  two  other  women,  an  elderly  one 
who  might  have  been  a  teacher,  and  was  probably 
a  chaperon,  and  a  younger  one  of  her  own 
age,  or  thereabouts,  with  dark  hair  and  eyes, 
and  a  plump  figure.  This  friend  did  not 
wear  low-heeled  shoes;  Peter  looked  carefully 
to  see. 

The  two  groups  passed  each  other  again,  and 
Don  received  a  demure  glance  from  the  dark- 
haired  woman.  The  other  one  looked  quite  inno 
cently  directly  through  Peter  and  out  beyond  his 
back,  so  that  he  was  made  to  believe  that  she  had 
not  noticed  him  at  all,  and  indeed,  he  had  not  ex 
pected  her  to  notice  him,  but  the  fact  that  she  did 
not,  mortified  him.  A  bell  rang,  and  they  hurried 
to  their  seats. 

They  did  not  see  the  two  women  and  their 
chaperon  after  the  concert,  although  they  looked 
for  them.  They  walked  slowly  toward  the  bridge, 
against  the  wind,  burrowing  into  their  coats. 
Peter  spoke  first. 

"She  is  sort  of  interesting,  Don,"  he  said. 

"Very  likely,"  Don  answered.  "I  imagine 
she's  Radcliffe,  or  some  finishing  school.  I  hope 
not  a  finishing  school." 

"Yes,  that  would  be  too  bad.  But  she  doesn't 
look  very  finished.  .  .  .  Would  you  call  her 
pretty?" 


PETER   KINDRED  123 

Don  stared  at  him  in  amazement.  "Lord,"  he 
said,  "I'm  sure  I  don't  know." 

"I  thought  she  wasn't  bad  looking1,"  said  Peter 
defiantly.  "She  has  rather  lovely  eyes.  ..." 

"Peter,  Peter,"  cried  Don,  "you  come  home! 
Did  you  hear  the  man !  Come  home,  and  I'll  make 
you  a  lovely  cup  of  coffee,  and  you  can  make  eyes 
into  it.  For  the  love  of  heaven,  lad." 

They  climbed  the  stairs  together  to  Don's  room 
where,  presently,  a  little  coffee  percolator  bubbled 
and  hummed  and  sputtered,  while  a  blue  flame 
fluttered  beneath  it.  The  room  was  ill  shadow 
save  for  two  candles,  and  the  wavering  flame  of 
the  percolator.  Peter  lay  sprawled  on  the  couch 
and  watched  it,  still  hearing  faintly  and  far  away 
the  sweeping  sound  of  violins,  the  blare  of  horns 
and  drums  and  basses. 

"I  think  I'm  going  to  try  to  meet  her,"  he  said 
at  last,  drowsily. 

Don  lit  his  pipe  and  waved  the  burnt  match  at 
Peter.  "Go  to  it,"  he  said,  and  chuckled. 

Peter  spent  a  week  wondering  if  a  woman  with 
low  heels,  small  ankles,  fairly  obtrusive  feet,  and 
not  overmuch  hair  were  a  natural  or  an  unnatural 
animal,  if  she  appeared  as  she  did  for  comfort 
and  good  reasons,  or  if  it  betokened  a  sarcastic 
attitude  toward  men.  He  hardly  bothered  with 
the  question  of  who  she  might  be,  for  he  had  no 
means  of  answering  it  until  he  had  solved  the 
riddle  of  meeting  her,  and  that  was  so  unsolvable 


124  PETER    KINDRED 

that  he  spent  no  time  wondering  about  it  at  all. 
He  could  not  help  imbuing  her  with  attributes 
both  pleasant  and  unpleasant,  and  wondering  if 
they  were  true  of  her.  From  his  two  glimpses  of 
her  he  tried  to  build  some  estimate  of  the  woman 
herself,  and  yet  he  did  not  willingly  concede  her 
pleasant  attributes,  but  tried  to  make  the  least  of 
her  in  his  mind.  The  result  was  that  at  the  end 
of  a  week  she  was  a  fairly  unpleasant  character 
to  him,  cold-blooded,  capricious,  and  headstrong, 
inhuman  to  children,  and  difficult  to  talk  to.  This 
he  fashioned  out  of  her  gray  eyes,  her  mouth  per 
haps  a  trifle  too  firm,  and  her  seemingly  careless 
array.  He  was  stubbornly  unwilling  that  she 
should  be  splendid,  and  the  fact  that  her  nose  and 
eyes  were  good  gave  him  little  stabs  of  jealousy 
and  half  of  admiration.  He  did  not  know  his  re 
luctance  to  think  well  of  her  for  antagonism,  but 
took  it  to  be  both  skepticism  and  experience.  Yet 
how  little  he  knew  of  either.  He  was,  indeed,  an 
tagonistic  to  her,  to  her  proud  bearing,  and  dis 
puted  instinctively  her  right  to  own  a  mind  and 
a  will  and  a  personality  of  her  own  that  would  be 
unwilling  to  cede  ground  to  him.  And  yet,  he 
could  not  help  envying  her  acquaintance. 

The  background  of  his  family  handicapped  him ; 
it  took  his  pride  away  from  under  him,  and  gave 
him  what  Don  called  an  inferiority  complex,  a 
feeling  that  his  core  was  not  quite  as  sound  as 
hers  was,  that  her  fundamental  culture  and 
training  were  better  perhaps;  that  if  he  were 


PETER   KINDRED  125 

gone  into  deeply  enough,  something  would  be 
found  savoring  of  the  uncouth.  He  thought  that 
Don  had  no  such  trouble  as  that,  and  compared 
himself  to  Harvard  and  to  Harvard  men  with  a 
touch  of  resignation  for  his  lack  of  quiet  confi 
dence  and  such  Tightness  and  natural  dignity  as 
they  had,  and  their  fathers  had  had.  His  father 
lacked  dignity,  it  was  not  born  into  him,  but  had 
been  acquired,  and  he  was  never  quite  sure  if  it 
were  correct. 

He  did  not  see  her  the  next  Saturday,  at  the 
second  symphony.  During  the  week  following,  he 
was  pressed  with  work,  and  spent  his  time  either 
in  the  library  or  at  his  desk.  Don,  busy  as  well, 
did  not  disturb  him.  With  his  thoughts  taken 
away  from  him  for  a  time  and  bent  upon  an  im 
personal  problem,  the  matters  of  women  and  sex 
were  forgotten.  He  began  to  think  of  smiling  at 
the  whole  matter,  and  prepared  to  put  it  out  of 
his  mind  with  its  attendant  uneasiness.  When  he 
saw  her  again  at  the  third  symphony  he  watched 
her  impersonally;  during  the  intermission  he  dis 
cussed  the  music  with  Don,  as  far  as  he  was  able, 
interested  to  find  that  he  had  not  been  entirely 
lost  in  the  music,  which  was  Beethoven,  and  feel 
ing  pleased  at  that,  and  musical.  Still,  coining 
home  he  was  silent,  and  did  not  answer  Don  when 
he  hummed  a  theme  from  the  symphony,  but 
stared  gloomily  ahead. 

That  night  he  sat  a  long  while  in  Don's  room 
saying  nothing,  and  went  finally  into  his  own  room 


126  PETER    KINDRED 

where  he  undressed  slowly  and  went  resolutely  to 
bed. 

Before  he  fell  asleep  he  sighed,  and  smiled, 
as  he  dozed,  at  a  picture  of  himself  faultlessly 
arrayed  promenading  up  and  down  the  marble 
foyers  of  the  Symphony  in  grave  discussion  with 
the  gray-eyed  woman.  After  the  discussion  was 
over,  he  helped  her  gallantly  into  his  impressive 
motor,  and  they  started  out  together,  whereat 
her  formless  body  became  monstrously  formless 
and  she  became  all  feet.  With  that  he  fell 
asleep. 

He  awoke  with  the  rather  ecstatic  decision  to 
bother  no  more  about  her,  but  to  give  her  free  ac 
cess  to  his  thoughts  if  she  wanted  it,  and  as  for 
meeting  her,  to  trust  to  the  Lord,  who  had  handled 
his  affair  with  the  bursar  so  carefully.  Having 
decided  that  irrevocably,  he  went  blithely  to  his 
breakfast,  and  had  no  thought  of  her  again  until 
shortly  before  the  Christmas  holidays. 

He  was  invited  in  a  roundabout  way  to  be  a 
part  of  an  audience  at  a  performance  of  the  Work 
shop,  which  is  the  testing  room  of  a  famous  or 
infamous  course  in  dramatic  literature  at  Har 
vard,  according  to  your  lights  and  your  opinions. 
He  went  without  much  interest,  and  mostly  from 
a  willingness  to  be  sociable.  When  the  curtain 
wont  up  on  the  second  short  play,  the  gray-eyed, 
russet-haired  woman  was  sitting  in  a  rocking  chair 
on  the  stage,  knitting,  and  his  heart  commenced 
to  beat  in  loud,  powerful  thumps. 


PETER    KINDRED  127 

During  the  short  play  this  woman  held  her  audi 
ence  intent  upon  her,  filling  the  whole  stage  with 
her  slight  presence,  and  although  she  was  neither 
beautiful  nor  eminently  artistic,  there  was  a  force 
and  a  simplicity  about  her  that  sounded  in  her 
precise  voice,  and  made  the  audience  thoughtful 
of  her  whether  it  would  or  no.  Peter,  sitting  in 
his  seat  with  his  knees  drawn  up  under  his  chin 
and  his  arms  wrapped  about  them,  stared  at  her 
with  the  intentness  of  his  entire  body,  watching 
every  slightest  motion  she  made,  as  though  from 
the  sight  of  her  on  the  stage  and  the  sound  of  her 
voice  he  was  to  gather  and  understand  the  whole 
of  her.  The  curtain  went  down  to  a  hearty  ap 
plause,  and  Peter  gazed  blankly  around  him  at 
people's  faces. 

From  the  talk  of  neighbors  he  gathered  that  she 
was  a  Miss  Joan  Somebody-or-other,  of  Boston, 
Radcliffe,  a  famous  name  in  her  college,  a  mem 
ber  of  the  Idler,  possessed  of  an  intolerant  mind 
but  an  indubitable  dramatic  talent.  Peter  was 
shaken  by  both  delight  and  dismay,  and  had  small 
stomach  for  the  remainder  of  the  plays,  but  sat 
with  his  chin  in  his  hand,  and  a  dour  look  on  his 
face,  thinking  how  little  he  would  have  to  say  to 
her,  and  how  embarrassed  he  would  be  saying  it  to 
her,  yet  how  essential  that  he  meet  her,  neverthe 
less,  and  say  something.  To  meet  her  would  not 
be  difficult;  he  had  an  acquaintance  among  the 
players.  Yet  when  this  fellow  greeted  him  at  the 
end  of  the  performance,  Peter  did  not  ask  to  meet 


128  PETER    KINDRED 

Miss  Joan  Somebody-or-other,  but  said  nothing  at 
all  about  her,  and  went  home  finally  in  a  towering 
rage  at  himself. 

The  next  day,  determined,  but  bitterly  self-con 
scious,  he  asked  his  acquaintance  of  the  Workshop 
to  introduce  him  to  her. 

Joan  was  inclined  to  be  friendly  and  inter 
ested,  but  in  quite  a  decent  sort  of  way,  rather  as 
though  she  were  not  anyone  in  particular,  and  as 
though,  for  all  she  knew,  Peter  might  be.  Such 
an  attitude  disarmed  Peter,  and  he  was,  besides, 
overawed  at  talking  to  her  finally,  and  listening 
to  her  talking  to  him ;  at  being,  all  of  a  sudden,  ac 
quainted.  He  found  something  to  say,  and  said  it 
even  more  awkwardly  than  he  had  feared  he 
would.  Joan,  however,  overlooked  his  awkward 
ness,  and  yet  he  felt  that  for  all  her  simplicity  and 
affability  she  would  criticize  him  unsparingly  once 
she  decided  that  it  was  time  for  him  to  have  set 
tled  this  initial  embarrassment,  and  would  9emand 
from  him  a  close  accounting  of  his  intelligence. 
He  liked  that,  although  he  champed  a  little  to 
himself,  and  felt  like  crying  out  for  her  to  bring 
on  her  old  intelligence  and  he'd  show  it. 

He  was  impressed  with  her  direct  way  of  talk 
ing,  her  chin  a  bit  in  the  air,  and  from  the  quiet 
way  she  said  things  he  fancied  that  she  was  not 
in  the  habit  of  being  disagreed  with.  Yet  it  did 
not  give  him  the  wish  to  disagree  with  her,  or  to 
oppose  her,  but  he  did  feel  an  uncommon  longing 
to  say  something  well,  and  to  interest  her  eyes, 


PETER    KINDRED  129 

which  were  not  interested  in  him,  but  looked  be 
yond  him  at  some  far-away  figure,  herself,  per 
haps,  whom  he  did  not  know,  or  some  friend, 
utterly  remote  to  him.  He  wanted  to  know  her  all 
at  once,  and  to  know  her  thoughts  and  the  signifi 
cance  of  her  motions  and  her  expressions.  He 
wanted  very  much  to  dare  the  entire  battery  of 
her  criticism  immediately,  and  be  passed  inti 
mately  into  her  life  and  her  thoughts,  or  be  routed, 
massacred  without  further  delay.  He  felt  impa 
tient  at  her  strangeness  and  unfamiliarness. 

The  account  Don  got  of  her  was  confused. 
Peter,  himself  dazed  at  the  remarkable  fact  of 
really  "having  met  her,  could  give  him  no  descrip 
tion  of  her  that  did  not  involve  a  scrambling  of 
her  appearance  and  his  impressions.  The  result 
ing  omelette  was  Joan,  not  quite  as  pretty  as  she 
really  was,  but  rather  more  intelligent. 

"I  haven 't  the  faintest  idea  what  I  said  to 
her,"  he  told  Don,  "but  I  have  a 'feeling  that  it 
was  something  I  shouldn't.  She  has  a  way  of 
talking,  and  looking  at  you  with  her  chin  that 
makes  you  feel  small  and  criticized,  and  makes 
you  want  to  say  something  quickly  and  as  pom 
pously  as  you  can.  She  does  really  look  at  you 
with  her  chin,  as  though  it  were  all  ready  to 
sniff  .  .  ." 

"Were  her  feet  very  noticeable?"  Don  asked. 

Peter  maintained  a  dignified  silence  until  Don 
broke  out  laughing  at  him,  and  then  he  grew  red 
and  finally  laughed  back. 


130  PETER    KINDRED 

"Do  you  know,"  he  said,  "I  never  thought  of 
them.  They're  so  natural." 

Peter  went  moodily  into  his  own  room.  He  was 
angry  that  he  should  be  so  tormented,  and  a  bit 
out  of  sorts  with  himself  for  caring  about  it.  The 
thought  of  Joan  was  too  busy  in  his  mind,  he 
could  not  rid  himself  of  it.  He  did  not  wish  to 
see  her,  and  yet  he  did;  he  had  nothing  he 
wished  to  say  to  her,  and  knew  that  she  had  noth 
ing  to  say  to  him,  but  felt,  nevertheless,  as  a 
man  feels  who  considers  that  he  has  come  badly 
out  of  an  encounter  where  he  should  have  done 
well,  and  hesitates  to  leave  his  adversary,  but 
dawdles  nearby,  uneasy,  important,  always  upon 
the  brink  of  words,  but  silent.  It  is  probable  that 
if  he  had  done  well  at  his  first  meeting  with  Joan, 
he  would  have  forgotten  her  more  easily,  or  rather 
put  her  further  out  on  the  fringe  of  his  mind,  but 
as  it  was,  he  expected  something  of  himself  and 
was  impatient  because  he  did  nothing  and  because 
there  was  nothing  to  do. 

Two  days  before  the  Christmas  holidays  he  met 
Joan  coming  out  of  the  Coop.  With  her  was  the 
same  dark-haired  girl  he  had  seen  at  the  Sym 
phony.  His  heart  gave  a  thump,  and  then  he  felt 
cold.  He  was  furious  at  himself  for  that,  and 
between  the  thump  and  his  anger,  he  was  con 
fused.  For  an  instant  Joan  looked  troubled  and 
hesitated,  then  nodded  her  head  to  him  briefly. 
He  bowed,  and  went  toward  her  rather  stupidly, 


PETER   KINDRED  131 

wishing  with  all  his  might,  while  his  feet  led  him 
along,  that  he  had  gone  quietly  by.  Joan  seemed 
to  be  a  bit  dismayed  at  him.  They  shook  hands 
in  mutual  embarrassment,  and  after  they  had 
both  said  how  do  you  do,  there  was  a  moment  of 
silence.  Peter,  with  a  flaming  face,  finally  .ex 
claimed  in  a  dry,  unnatural  voice,  "I  ...  I  was 
wondering  ...  if  you  remembered  me." 

At  Peter's  intense  embarrassment  Joan  smiled, 
and  looked  at  him  calmly.  "Oh,  yes,"  she  said, 
"I  met  you  at  the  Workshop. "  She  turned  to  her 
friend.  "Helen,  I'd  like  to  introduce  Mr.  .  .  ." 
she  became  slightly  confused  again  but  shook  her 
head  impatiently.  "Mr. ?"  she  asked,  look 
ing  at  Peter. 

"Kindred,"  Peter  said,  mortified  and  self-con 
scious. 

"Of  course,  Mr.  Kindred.  This  is  Miss  Helen 
Graff." 

The  black-haired  girl  smiled  pleasantly  and 
shook  hands  cordially  with  Peter. 

"Didn't  I  see  you  at  the  Symphony?"  she  asked, 
"with  a  tall,  yellow-haired  man?" 

"Yes,  indeed."  Peter  felt  his  blood  flow  evenly 
along  his  veins  again  with  a  deal  of  satisfaction. 
His  heart  rode  high,  like  an  unburdened  ship. 
The  two  women  started  to  walk  across  the  Square 
toward  Massachusetts  and  Peter  went  with  them. 
Joan  looked  whimsically  at  Helen,  but  luckily 
for  Peter  he  did  not  see  it,  or  he  would  have 
found  some  excuse  for  leaving  them  at  once. 


132  PETER    KINDRED 

Helen  smiled  back  at  Joan,  and  talked  to  Peter 
about  the  Symphony.  He  answered  her  as 
thoughtfully  as  he  could,  and  felt  that  he  was  not 
doing  badly,  at  any  rate. 

The  two  women  went  into  one  of  the  shops,  and 
Peter  went  fairly  helplessly  along,  to  their  hid 
den  amusement.  Then  the  three  walked  up 
Massachusetts  until  they  came  upon  the  Merle, 
and  Peter  boyishly  and  clumsily  asked  them  to 
take  chocolate  with  him.  The  very  awkwardness 
of  his  request  made  it  impossible  for  them  to  re 
fuse,  although  they  were  taken  aback.  If  he  had 
had  more  confidence  and  had  asked  them  more 
politely,  they  wouldn't  have  gone,  but  his  disin 
genuous  invitation  was  appealing,  and  they  ac 
cepted.  They  sat  together  at  a  small,  warm  table, 
while  the  world  went  by  outside. 

"Do  you  like  the  French  music  very  much?" 
asked  Joan.  "I  don't.  ...  As  one  man  would 
say,  it  makes  you  feel  rather  lazy  ...  as  though 
you  never  wanted  to  work  any  more  .  .  .  don't 
you  think?'' 

"Carver,  by  the  Lord!"  popped  out  of  Peter's 
mouth,  and  he  looked  in  sheer  amazement  at 
Joan. 

"Do  yon  know  him?"  she  asked. 

"No — that  is,  I  don't  know  him — but  I  know  of 
him — and  his  ideas." 

Joan  smiled  at  him  agreeably. 

"What  do  you  say  to  him?" 

' '  Yes,  yes.    By  all  means.    Do  you  ? ' ' 


PETER   KINDRED  133 

"Yes,  indeed.  I  don't  know  that  I  quite  agree 
with  him  about  everything,  though.  Do  you?" 

"Hmm  .  .  .  well  ...  Oh,  I  don't  know  ...  I 
don't  believe  I've  read  enough  about  it." 

Peter  noticed  that  Helen  Graff  gave  her  hot 
chocolate  two  quick  chews  before  she  swallowed 
it,  but  that  Joan  did  not.  It  pleased  him  that  she 
did  not,  although  the  chocolate  at  the  Merle  is  so 
thick  it  might  well  be  chewed.  Joan  ate  rather 
daintily,  he  thought,  and  then  he  spilled  a  drop 
of  chocolate  on  himself  and  was  ashamed. 

"Do  you  know,"  Joan  said,  and  laughed,  "when 
I  met  you  I  thought  that  you  were  an  aesthete. 
Isn't  it  odd?  You  might  be,  you  know.  I'm  glad 
you're  an  economist,  it's  rather  jolly." 

She  had  warmed  toward  him,  and  felt  at  her 
ease  with  him.  When  he  was  not  embarrassed,  as 
he  had  been  at  their  meeting,  there  was  a  frank, 
impetuous  air  about  him  that  one  either  liked  at 
once  or  found  intolerable. 

"I'm  awfully  glad  you  think  so,"  he  said. 
"I've  never  known  anyone  from  Radcliffe.  So 
you  are  sort  of  mysterious.  To  tell  the  truth,  I 
was  fearfully  scared  at  meeting  you,  and  I  almost 
didn't." 

"Why?"  Helen  asked. 

Peter  blushed.  "I  don't  know,"  he  said.  But 
he  did  know,  somewhat.  So  he  fibbed  a  little.  "I 
was  rather  afraid  that  you'd  be  awfully  intelli 
gent,  ' '  he  said. 

"Aren't  we?"  Joan  asked  him  saucily. 


134  PETER    KINDRED 

"Yes,  of  course  .  .  .  but  I  meant  forbidding 
and  very  wise  .  .  .  just  Radcliff e. ' ' 

"Goodness!"  cried  Helen,  "what  has  the  man 
against  Radcliffe?" 

"Oh,  nothing,"  Peter  said  hastily.  "But 
there's  a  sort  of  tradition,  you  know."  Tho 
phrase  low  heels  nearly  popped  out,  but  he  shut 
his  mouth  on  it.  "At  least,  here  at  Harvard  Rad- 
cliffe  women  are  supposed  to  be  ...  a  bit 
haughty,  perhaps." 

"Do  hear  the  man!"  Helen  cried. 

"Why  is  that?"  Joan  asked. 

Peter  felt  uncomfortable,  and  wished  that  he 
had  never  started  talking  of  Radcliffe.  However, 
he  took  a  breath  and  looked  at  Joan  defiantly. 

"I  suppose  it's  because  most  Radcliff  e  women 
wo  see  on  the  streets  look  that  way.  And  then, 
you  never  do  anything  but  serious  things,  and 
you  have  no  college  life,  and  no  real  college  and 
no  Yard." 

"We  have  a  very  real  college  life,  Mr.  Kin 
dred,"  Joan  said  kindly,  "and  we  are  very  busy 
in  it.  We  have  also  a  college,  and  quite  a  pleasant 
little  Yard.  After  vacation  you  must  come  up  to 
see  me,  and  I'll  show  it  to  you." 

"May  I?"  said  Peter,  who  had  been  very  much 
humbled  by  her  tone.  They  rose  to  go;  on  the 
street  outside  the  Merle,  Joan  held  out  her  hand. 
Peter  took  it,  and  so  said  good-bye,  although  he 
had  not  expected  to,  and  after  shaking  hands  with 
Helen,  and  promising  to  call  on  them  both  after 


PETER   KINDRED  ,    135 

Christmas,  he  watched  them  pass  along  the  ave 
nue,  and  turned  soberly  toward  his  room. 

Don  was  packing  and  the  sight  depressed  Peter. 
There  was  a  cheerless,  half -filled  trunk  in  the  cen 
ter  of  his  room,  his  closets  were  bare  of  clothes, 
books  were  scattered  on  the  floor.  Peter  looked 
through  the  door  and  scowled;  he  swung  on  his 
heel  and  went  gloomily  into  his  own  room.  He 
felt  no  elation  at  going  home ;  he  wanted  to  stay 
in  Cambridge,  but  he  did  not  want  Cambridge  to 
be  deserted.  He  missed  the  notes  in  his  spirit 
which  usually  responded  to  the  cold,  piney  stir  of 
Christmas,  and  he  felt  as  though  a  festival  were 
passing  by  him,  and  he  were  not  interested  in  it 
at  all,  as  though  he  were  an  abstracted  foreigner 
in  Seville  during  a  procession.  It  was  with  regret 
that  he  thought  of  meeting  his  family  again  and 
having  forced  upon  him  a  realization  of  depend 
ence,  the  narrow  outlines  of  his  group,  submissive- 
ness.  He  could  not  bring  the  thought  of  Joan 
home  with  him,  to  that  environment,  unless  he 
went  home  frankly  contemptuous  and  openly 
classing  himself  with  Joan's  group,  fundamentally 
opposed  to  the  group  his  family  represented.  He 
was  not  sure  enough  of  himself  for  that;  he  was 
not  sure  at  all  that  Joan  accepted  him,  or  that  he 
had  any  real  right  to  consider  himself  a  unit  in 
any  group  but  the  one  in  which  he  had  been  born. 

"It  makes  me  feel  underhanded  about  living, " 
he  said  to  Don.  "I'm  entirely  dependent,  or  prac 
tically  so,  because  my  scholarship  amounts  to  very 


136  PETER    KINDRED 

little,  on  a  man  who  can't  afford  it  without  a  good 
deal  of  sacrifice.  Yet  I  haven't  any  respect  for 
him.  He  expects  me  to  come  out  of  college  and 
be  a  pride  to  him  in  his  own  group,  but  I  sha'n't." 

"Still,  Peter,  your  dependence  on  your  father 
is  just  along  with  your  own  philosophy,  yon 
know,"  Don  said  gently. 

"Yes,  I  suppose  it  is.  But  it  makes  me  feel 
uncomfortable.  I  might  be  rather  fond  of  father 
if  I  weren't  dependent  on  him.  It  pulls  me  down 
toward  him,  and  I  want  to  climb  away.  It  seems 
sort  of  dastardly  to  kick  back  at  him,  when  after 
all,  it's  his  own  self  I'm  climbing  on.  But  what 
is  there  to  do?" 

"Well,"  Don  said  judiciously,  "there's  really 
nothing  to  do  but  grow  up,  and  see  what  happens. 
Meanwhile,  let  him  have  his  way;  he  likes  that, 
and  it  doesn't  hurt." 

"Hmm,"  Peter  muttered,  "I  suppose  so.  But 
it's  fairly  cowardly." 

' '  Then  leave  college,  and  go  out  and  work. ' ' 

"Frankly— it's  the  last  thing  I  want  to  do." 

"Well,  then!" 

"I  know  it.    It's  silly  to  bother." 

Peter  went  home  with  the  decision  not  to  bother, 
but  to  be  as  gentle-spirited  as  it  was  possible  to 
be,  and  to  keep  his  own  thoughts  strictly  to  him 
self.  However,  he  found  it  impossible;  he  was 
too  young,  and  too  intent  upon  being  right.  He 
made  a  gallant  attempt  of  two  days;  his  mother 
was  satisfied,  his  father  content,  and  then  he  grew 


PETER   KINDRED  137 

gloomy  and  curt  and  finally  gave  vent  to  an  ac 
cumulated  and  bitter  jeer  that  froze  his  family 
into  a  moment  of  astounded  horror.  He  was  sorry 
then,  but  the  thing  was  done ;  his  mother  wept  a 
little  by  herself,  and  her  husband,  noticing  it,  be 
came  heavy-hearted  and  almost  pathetically  silent. 
Only  Edith  gave  battle  to  Peter,  passionately,  and 
very  nearly  drowned  him  with  wave  after  wave 
of  feelings,  hers,  her  parents',  her  friends',  her 
acquaintances',  and  finally  people's  in  general. 
To  Edith,  Peter  turned  a  cold,  sarcastic  eye,  but 
underneath  it,  carefully  hidden,  was  an  unhappy 
sense  of  shame,  as  though  he  had  been  caught  in 
an  hysterical  outburst  at  an  indiscreet  child.  It 
caused  him  to  feel  neither  wise  nor  good,  but 
young  and  uncontrolled. 

He  left  his  family  with  a  mixture  of  relief  and 
reproach  for  himself,  as  a  man  leaves  an  unfortu 
nate  wretch  to  whom  he  has  just  been  rightly  but 
uncommonly  nasty.  His  parents  were  not  glad 
that  he  went,  although  they  would  not  have  wanted 
him  to  stay.  They  were  unhappy  at  his  presence, 
but  more  unhappy  that  he  left  them  for  an  en 
vironment  that  was  drawing  him  more  and  more 
away  from  them.  His  mother  was  reluctant  to 
bid  him  good-bye,  and  held  him  close  to  her  for  a 
moment.  It  touched  Peter  and  caused  him  to  feel 
guilty  toward  her;  it  embarrassed  him,  and  he 
left  a  bit  rudely;  she  watched  him  pass  below  the 
street  lamp,  from  her  window,  and  she  wanted  to 
cry.  Peter,  on  the  street,  condemned  himself  fu- 


138  PETER    KINDRED 

riously  for  that  rudeness,  and  was  half  minded  to 
go  back  again,  but  there  was  no  time  for  it.  For 
a  while  Peter's  father  grew  bitter  toward  his 
work,  and  morose  at  home,  but  that  wore  off 
again,  and  life  for  the  Kindreds  flowed  on  placidly 
as  before,  the  tide,  perhaps,  deepened  and  en- 
salted  with  a  current  of  gathering  old  age,  a  hint 
of  loneliness  and  helplessness.  Peter  wrote  his 
parents  long  and  affectionate  letters,  and  these 
strained  out  the  tide  a  little.  Edith,  finding  that 
her  parents  did  not  wish  a  champion  against 
Peter,  was  moved  to  blow  out  the  flame  under  the 
kettle  of  her  feelings,  and  as  her  indignation  sim 
mered  down,  so  did  her  memory  of  the  affair,  and 
after  she  had  expressed  herself  to  her  friends  and 
cronies  on  the  subject  of  selfish,  smart-Aleck 
brothers,  she  forgot  all  about  it,  and  almost  for 
got  that  she  had  any  brother  at  all. 


CHAPTER  VI 

"DETER  lay  awake  in  his  berth  a  long  while, 
*  lulled  by  the  swift  motion  of  the  train,  staring 
through  the  black  oblong  of  the  window,  now  at 
darkness,  without  motion,  now  at  stars  that  rose 
and  fell  across  the  windowpane  as  the  car  rocked 
from  side  to  side.  He  was  deeply  content  at  re 
turning  to  Boston  again,  at  the  thought  of  Cam 
bridge  before  him.  He  was  eager  to  forget  his 
troubledness  with  himself,  and  to  come  clear  of 
his  family  into  the  serene  house  on  Holyoke 
Street,  to  leave  the  tall,  gray  walls  and  the  sun 
less  streets  of  New  York  behind  him.  He  blamed 
himself  for  the  ftiiserable  week  he  had  spent,  but 
he  tried  not  to  think  of  his  family;  it  was  a  vastly 
unpleasant  business,  all  of  it,  and  he  wanted  to  get 
back  to  his  own  room  again  and  to  forget  it,  to 
straighten  out  his  thoughts  again,  to  untangle  his 
spirit  and  put  it  out  to  air.  It  needed  airing,  he 
thought,  it  was  soiled.  He  fell  asleep  watching 
the  stars  swinging  up  and  down,  his  head  deep 
among  the  soft  pillows  of  the  berth. 

139 


140  PETER    KINDRED 

When  he  awoke  the  train  wag  rushing  on 
through  grayness.  He  looked  ont  the  window; 
dawn  was  breaking  in  the  east,  his  window  faced 
the  west.  The  countryside  was  heavily  covered 
with  snow,  fallen  lately;  it  looked  very  cold  and 
blue  and  still.  The  sky  was  gray,  faintly  lighted 
by  the  first  flush  of  the  snnrise  he  could  not  see. 
Shadows  were  deep,  in  quiet  blue  and  umber,  like 
pools.  The  train  swept  past  a  gronp  of  still, 
brown  houses,  their  roofs  heavy  with  snow,  their 
shingled  sides  dim  and  misted  with  frosty  blue,  a 
lonely  village  in  the  country,  hushed  with  the 
snow.  A  gold  light  burned  in  the  window  of  a 
cottage;  the  train  clicked  over  a  crossroads,  the 
bars  down,  a  yellow  lantern  swinging,  a  bell 
tinkling;  the  empty  white  road  wound  lonesomely 
over  a  hill  and  was  lost.  Past  gaunt  maples  and 
sombre  pines  and  birches  into  low,  level  fields, 
rocks,  a  glimpse  of  brown  earth,  the  impassive 
countryside,  still,  snowy,  shadowed  and  mysteri 
ous. 

No  people  live  here,  thought  Peter;  this  is 
the  land,  as  mighty  and  as  immortal  as  the  sea. 
He  was  oppressed  with  a  sense  of  the  desolation 
of  that  country,  the  isolation,  the  loneliness  of 
life  there,  the  need,  in  such  a  country,  to  huddle 
about  a  fire.  And  yet,  he  thought,  it  is  not  ter 
rible,  save  as  the  sea  is,  in  its  tremendous  quiet 
ness  and  carelessness  of  us.  Man  is  the  wisest  of 
all  animals,  and  the  loneliest,  the  most  fearful  of 
silence.  He  thought  of  New  York ;  he  said  to  him- 


PETER   KINDRED  141 

self  that  people  prefer  discomfort  to  solitude,  and 
he  wondered  what  it  was  in  solitude  they  feared 
and  hated  so.  He  could  not  answer  it,  and 
thought  of  the  many,  many  little  villages  scattered 
about  the  country,  huddled  together  from  the 
snow,  of  the  lonely  and  limited  lives  implicit  in 
them,  the  dwarfed  desires  of  men  and  women,  the 
bound  and  narrowed  horizons.  It  was  a  vision  of 
small  things,  of  futile  thiners,  a  vision  of  men's 
hands  blocked  and  defeated  by  the  still  land,  of 
desires  groping  for  expression,  doomed  to  failure, 
passion  forced  to  the  rut  of  living,  inarticulate 
life,  gaunt  and  joyless.  It  was  a  vision  of  men 
and  maids,  of  crude  loves  growing  old,  of  dreams 
coming  to  nothing.  Is  that  why  we  fear  the  land, 
he  asked  himself,  our  dreams  coming  to  nothing? 
In  the  quiet  of  the  land  we  can  hear  them  die 
away.  .  .  .  He  stared  out  at  the  snow.  The  train 
swept  on  toward  Boston. 

But  Boston  was  subtly  changed.  It  had  been  a 
city  of  various  people,  of  faces  and  manners,  a 
city  of  pleasant  tendencies  that  were  manifest  in 
its  folk.  Now  it  was  inescapably  to  Peter  the  city 
of  a  person.  Joan  lived  there,  and  Boston  was  her 
setting.  He  felt  as  a  man  feels  in  a  particular 
woman's  house,  curious  of  the  rooms  in  which  she 
moved  and  talked,  the  hangings  she  stirred  as  she 
passed  through,  the  shadows  she  walked  among. 
He  could  not  watch  the  streets  as  he  had  before 
when  he  thought  that  they  belonged  to  Boston,  to 
the  shopkeepers,  to  folk  he  did  not  know.  They 


142  PETER    KINDRED 

belonged  to  Joan  now,  they  were  a  part  of  her 
country.  Everything  there  was  an  expression  of 
her,  of  her  life  and  her  community.  It  was  a 
strange  sensation  to  Peter,  half  friendly  because 
Joan  was  friendly,  and  half  unfriendly  because 
it  took  Boston'away  from  him  and  gave  it  over  to 
Joan.  The  very  cold  of  the  early  morning  that 
bit  at  his  hands  as  he  struggled  with  his  valise 
from  the  train  to  the  trolley  was  her  cold;  it  be 
longed  to  her  city,  in  which,  somewhere,  she  was 
probably  asleep  in  her  own  maidenly  room.  He 
did  not  feel  the  same  toward  Cambridge,  however, 
I  think  because  Harvard  was  a  more  lordly  affair 
than  Radcliffe  and  so,  of  course,  a  Harvard  man 
would  be  more  important  there  and  more  at  home 
than  a  Radcliffe  woman. 

For  a  day  his  room,  warm,  sunny,  faintly 
fragrant  with  tobacco,  spiritually  spacious,  con 
tented  him.  Don,  from  the  west,  was  late,  with  a 
special  addition  of  two  days  to  his  vacation.  Then 
evening  drew  down  on  Cambridge,  blowing  the 
snow  to  a  chillier  crunch  underfoot,  blowing  the 
air  to  crisper,  frostier  cold,  drifting  over  the 
roofs  of  Cambridge,  about  the  windows,  and  up 
and  down  the  streets  in  palest  emerald,  adding 
distance  and  uncertainty  to  voices,  kindling  lamps. 
The  house  on  Holyoke  became  very,  very  still; 
steps  went  by  down  Holyoke  Street,  and  the  muf 
fled  sound  of  cars  moving  over  snow  came  faintly 
from  Massachusetts.  In  his  room  Peter  sat  alone, 
more  homesick  than  he  had  been  since  his  first 


PETER    KINDRED  143 

year  at  Exeter,  with  nothing  before  him  but 
supper. 

All  the  next  day  Cambridge  was  gaunt  and  like 
a  skeleton  to  him.  He  thought  it  was  because  Don 
was  not  there.  He  seemed  to  be  living  in  an  accus 
tomed  but  unfamiliarly  empty  house,  and  he 
waited  impatiently  for  Don's  arrival.  Don  did 
not  come  until  near  noon  of  the  third  day;  his 
train  had  been  delayed  by  snow;  he  was  sitting 
happily  in  his  room  when  Peter  trudged  back  from 
a  lecture.  Peter  was  jubilant  at  seeing  him  again, 
and  threw  his  loneliness  out  from  him.  They 
spent  the  whole  afternoon  and  evening  together, 
unpacking,  talking,  smoking  and  gossiping,  in 
Cambridge  and  in  Boston,  where  they  wound  up 
appropriately  in  honor  of  the  occasion. 

It  was  strange  how  Peter's  room  mellowed 
with  Don  across  the  hall,  and  with  what  a  rush 
life  became  friendly  and  comfortable  again. 

"We  are  a  lonely  sort  of  animal,"  he  said  to 
Don  reflectively,  "and  quite  at  odds  with  quiet. 
I  thought  about  it  on  the  way  up  from  New  York. 
I  was  fearfully  lonely  here,  and  hated  the  stillness. 
But  now  that  you're  back,  I  like  the  stillness.  We 
always  seem  to  need  one  thing,  a  thought  or  a 
person,  to  put  us  right  with  everything.  Just 
thoughts,  or  people,  won't  do.  The  more  thoughts, 
and  the  more  people — if  that  one  isn't  there — the 
lonelier  we  get.  It's  odd,  isn't  it? 

Yet  the  day  after  Don  had  come  there  was  still 
something  bare  and  unfilled  in  his  content,  and  he 


144  PETER    KINDRED 

came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  had  to  do  with 
Joan. 

He  was  restless  with  the  desire  to  see  her  again, 
and  kept  watching  for  her  on  the  street.  His  de 
sire  to  see  her  was  mixed  somewhat  with  the 
thought  that  he  ought  to  see  her,  and  the  thought 
that  if  he  put  it  off  too  long  she  would  probably 
forget  who  he  was  again.  He  did  not  want  to  be 
forgotten.  And  yet,  he  was  half  afraid  of  meet 
ing  her,  and  it  would  have  taken  a  great  deal  of 
urging  to  have  gotten  him  to  go  boldly  up  to  her 
Hall  and  to  ask  for  her.  He  kept  thinking  that  he 
had  a  long  time  before  him,  and  that  he  would 
doubtless  come  across  her;  yet  at  times  he  became 
impatient  with  himself,  and  restless,  and  felt  that 
priceless  days  were  slipping  from  him,  and  he  was 
doing  nothing. 

He  went  carelessly  to  the  first  Symphony  after 
the  holidays,  and  realized  with  a  start  of  dismay 
as  he  was  entering  the  hall  that  he  was  slovenly, 
in  an  old  suit  and  a  soft  shirt,  and  that  Joan 
might  be  there.  During  the  music  he  lost  himself 
in  reverie,  his  body  contentedly  answering  the 
rhythms  and  harmonies  as  far  as  it  was  able,  so 
that  during  the  intermission  he  got  up  from  his 
seat  and  started  for  the  foyer  with  Don,  quite 
thoughtless  of  himself.  At  the  door  he  remem 
bered  his  array,  but  hesitated  to  turn  back,  and 
walked  with  Don  to  the  front  smoking  hall,  where 
his  friend  left  him  to  join  a  group  of  acquaint 
ances.  Peter,  waiting  for  Don,  turned  back  to- 


PETER   KINDRED  145 

ward  the  side  foyer,  and  strolled  down  its  length ; 
with  his  hands  deep  in  his  pockets,  he  walked  di 
rectly  into  Joan  and  her  chaperon. 
" Hello,"  she  cried,  "how  are  yon?" 
Peter  felt  very  awkward  indeed,  but  managed 
somehow  to  disengage  his  hands  from  his  pockets 
in  time  to  shake  hands  with  her.  He  was  then 
presented  to  the  chaperon,  to  his  great  satisfac 
tion,  by  name,  unhesitatingly.  People  went  by 
them  and  crowded  them;  they  were  a  bit  in  the 
way,  and  Joan  and  her  chaperon  started  forward 
a  few  steps.  Peter  set  ont  to  follow,  not  wanting 
to  leave  so  abruptly,  but  as  he  came  abreast  of 
them,  Joan  smiled  across  at  him,  and  so  he  con 
tinued  walking  with  them.  Within  a  dozen  steps 
he  was  stricken  with  overwhelming  dismay,  and 
his  hand  flew  to  his  neck,  and  fluttered  confusedly 
about,  trying  to  hide  his  collar.  He  looked  at 
Joan,  to  find  some  trace  of  embarrassment  in  her 
face  for  his  presence,  but  there  was  none ;  he  was 
miserably  conscious  of  himself  in  the  parade  of 
people,  but  evidently  Joan  had  not  noticed  his 
slovenliness,  or  if  she  had  seen  it,  she  did  not 
mind.  It  was  reassuring,  particularly  since  the 
chaperon  did  not  seem  to  mind  either,  and  Peter 
could  find  no  trace  of  reproof  on  the  faces  of  the 
people  as  they  passed ;  gradually  he  forgot  it,  too, 
and  strolled  up  and  down  with  her,  talking  of 
music  and  Carver  and  college. 

Finally  they  passed  Don,  who  was  looking  for 
Peter,  and  he  stared  at  them  with  so  comical  an 


146  PETER    KINDRED 

expression  on  his  face  that  Peter  could  not  help 
laughing.  Joan  asked  him  why  he  had  laughed, 
and  so  he  told  her  a  little  about  Don,  and  Don's 
remark  one  afternoon  at  tea  in  Boston.  It  amused 
Joan  tremendously,  but  Don  was  amazed  and  em 
barrassed  to  see  her  turn  to  look  at  him. 

"You  know,  you  said  I  might  call  on  you," 
Peter  said  to  her,  "and  I've  wanted  to  awfully; 
but,  to  tell  the  honest  truth,  I'm  afraid  that  I've 
been  a  little  scared.  .  .  .  But  I  do  want  to!" 

"I  wish  you  would,"  Joan  said.  "There's 
really  nothing  to  be  scared  of,  unless  you  scare 
very  easily,  at  anything.  Of  course  there'll  be  a 
few  girls  looking  at  you,  rather,  from  around  cor 
ners,  but  they're  all  very  proper.  Anyhow,  come 
and  see." 

Yet  in  Peter's  satisfaction  after  the  concert 
there  was  a  disturbing  doubt,  a  thought  that  per 
haps  Joan  had  noticed  his  unhappy  suit  and  his 
soft,  wrinkled  collar,  and  had  tried  to  appear  as 
though  she  had  not  noticed  them.  But,  to  tell  the 
truth,  Joan  had  not  thought  of  Peter's  dress  at 
all.  To  her,  men's  clothes  were  indistinguishably 
alike,  and  I  think  that  unless  a  man  had  gone 
utterly  nude,  she  would  not  have  been  able  to  tell 
wherein  he  was  at  fault  with  too  much  or  too  little. 
But  Peter  worried  about  it,  and  took  himself  se 
verely  to  task. 

"Work  dragged  along;  Peter  went  almost 
thoughtlessly  to  his  classes,  read  a  little  of  what 
he  was  told  to  read,  and,  for  the  most  part,  let  the 


PETER   KINDRED  147 

warm  rooms,  the  cold  streets,  the  sun  and  wind 
and  snow,  noon  and  evening  soothe  him  and  rest 
him  and  keep  him  from  thinking  of  anything  very 
much,  or  taking  anything  seriously.  It  was  a 
sort  of  interlude  familiar  to  youth,  when,  after 
a  season  of  endeavor  and  struggle  the  spirit  sinks 
back  to  rest.  It  is  rarer  in  grown  men;  they  do 
not  live  as1  intensely  as  youngsters  and  so  there 
are  fewer  struggles,  and  fewer  hours  of  drowsi 
ness.  The  desires  and  ambitions  grow  deeper  and 
truer,  but  their  expression  becomes  more  tem 
pered  and  more  even,  a  steadier  beat  of  endeavor, 
a  slower  but  a  more  unfaltering  stride.  A  man 
gathers  momentum  with  his  years,  and  then  it  is 
harder  and  harder  to  rest. 

Peter  promised  himself  solemnly  that  he  would 
call  on  Joan  before  a  fortnight  had  passed,  a 
promise  that  satisfied  him  and  yet  did  not  worry 
him  with  any  thought  of  fulfilling  it,  for  a  fort 
night  is  a  long  time,  and  anything  can  happen  in 
a  fortnight.  Indeed,  something  did  happen — he 
chanced  upon  Joan  at  the  Merle,  alone  at  a  round, 
brown  table.  He  sat  down  with  her,  and  won 
dered  what  to  order ;  he  wanted  an  egg  mayonnaise 
sandwich,  a  remarkable  thing,  but  extremely  dif 
ficult  to  handle,  full  of  small,  smooth,  yellow  bits 
of  egg  that  always  fell  out.  He  was  afraid  that 
he  would  disgrace  himself,  and  so  contented  him 
self  with  a  drink,  and  an  easy  straw. 

They  were  speaking  of  New  York  when  they 
rose  to  go. 


148  PETER    KINDRED 

" Helen  Graff  is  from  New  York,"  Joan  said, 
"and  what  is  more,  she  rather  likes  you.  She 
thinks  that  you're  almost  the  awkwardest  man  she 
ever  saw."  Joan  laughed  delightedly,  and  Peter 
laughed  because  she  did,  although  he  did  not  see 
why  Helen  Graff  should  so  admire  awkwardness. 
Joan  must  have  felt  his  thought,  for  she  said, 
"You  see,  Helen  is  fearfully  awkward  and  shy 
and  embarrassed  herself,  and  so  I  suppose  she 
greets  it  gleefully  in  anyone  else." 

"Am  I  as  bad  as  all  that,  really?" 

"Well,  perhaps  not  quite  as  bad.  But  you  know 
you  are  awfully,  awfully  shy  and  quite  forlorn 
and  bewildered." 

Peter  rather  wanted  to  feel  hurt  at  that,  but  it 
was  hard  to  feel  hurt  at  it,  even  though  there  was 
some  truth  in  it. 

"Doesn't  it  embarrass  you  to  meet  a  person  like 
me?"  he  asked  with  a  trace  of  what  he  hoped 
was  bitterness  in  his  voice. 

"As  a  rule  it  does,"  she  answered  quickly,  "but 
with  you  it  was  different.  You  were  so  forlorn, 
I  wanted  to  pat  you." 

Peter  laughed.  He  was  not  really  ashamed  of 
his  unhappy  manner.  In  any  romance  of  his  own 
contriving  he  would  not  willingly  have  been  the 
bluff  knight  but  the  pathetic  page.  It  was  some 
thing  he  would  never  have  admitted. 

"I  didn't  think  that  Miss  Graff  was  shy,"  he 
said.  "In  fact,  that's  all  that  saved  me  from  .  .  . 
that's  all  that  saved  me." 


PETER   KINDRED  149 

"She  is  a  bit  queer  that  way,  Mr.  Kindred. 
She  was  really  frightfully  embarrassed,  and  when 
she  is  confused,  she  talks  a  great  deal.  ...  It 
wasn't  at  meeting  you  so  much,  but  because  I  for 
got  your  name. ' ' 

They  stopped  before  a  red-brick  dormitory  that 
reminded  Peter  of  the  Harvard  club  houses.  It 
was  more  delicate  and  more  prim,  and  it  seemed 
to  be  considering  peaceful  and  chaperoned 
thoughts. 

"Will  you  come  in,  Mr.  Kindred?"  Joan  asked. 

"I'd  love  to,  but  I  have  a  lecture.  Some  other 
timef11 

"Of  course.    I  told  you  so  before." 

"There's  just  one  thing,"  Peter  said,  and  then 
stopped  and  gulped.  "Oh,  never  mind,"  he  mur 
mured. 

"What  is  it!" 

"No— next  time." 

"Oh,  don't  be  a  child,"  Joan  said  impatiently. 
Peter  frowned  at  her  tone. 

"Now  I  shall  certainly  wait,"  he  said  doggedly. 

"I'm  sorry,"  she  smiled.  "Wait  if  you  wish. 
.  .  .  Tell  me." 

"Well  ...  I  thought  that  you  might  call  me 
Peter  instead  of  Mr.  Kindred,"  he  said. 

"Why,  certainly,  if  you  want  me  to.  I  would 
have  anyway,  after  a  while.  You  made  an  awful 
fuss  about  it." 

Peter  colored  faintly.  He  knew  that  he  had 
made  an  unwarrantable  fuss  about  it. 


150  PETER    KINDRED 

"Good-bye,"  he  said,  and  shook  hands  with  her. 

"Good-bye,"  she  said,  and  went  up  the  steps  of 
the  house.  He  turned  away  and  started  soberly 
back  toward  the  Square,  thinking  that  he  was  al 
ways  awkward,  and  that  she  had  not  invited  him 
to  call  her  Joan,  and  that  he  would  blunder  along 
somehow,  and  call  her  Joan  anyway,  whether  she 
liked  it  or  not.  But  the  thought  kept  coming  into 
his  mind  that  he  would  not  have  made  such  a 
bother  about  calling  David  David,  or  Frank  Frank. 

Peter  visited  Joan  soon  after,  summoning,  as 
he  stood  before  the  door  of  Bertram  Hall,  all  the 
sense  of  masculine  lordliness  and  all  the  scorn  of 
things  feminine  that  he  could  rouse  in  his  nature 
to  his  aid.  He  found,  finally,  that  he  did  not  need 
them,  for  Radcliffe  evinced  no  curiosity  about 
him  whatsoever;  yet  when  Joan  did  come  at  last 
into  the  room,  he  felt  more  comfortable,  and  less 
open  to  some  vague  suspicion  or  other.  It  was  a 
black  day,  and  so  they  sat  in  the  sedate  reception 
room  and  talked.  It  is  not  my  intention  carefully 
to  record  their  conversation  together,  or  indeed, 
any  of  Peter's  conversation;  talk  is  a  matter  of 
no  importance  save  here  or  there,  when  the  talker 
becomes  suddenly  articulate.  There  is  always  at 
first  some  agreement  on  the  weather,  as  though  to 
test  out  voices,  oil  up  vocal  chords,  settle  the  tone 
and  volume  of  sound  to  be  used.  However,  it  is 
curious  that  as  we  grow  older,  there  is  more  and 
more  stress  laid  upon  this  preliminary  tuning, 


PETER    KINDRED  151 

whereas  in  youth,  or  rather  in  childhood,  we  come 
at  once  to  what  is  nearest  our  hearts. 

Two  Carverians  cannot  be  together,  unless  they 
are  old  and  established  friends,  without  discussing 
Carver.  Peter  was  made  uncomfortable  by  Joan 's 
knowledge  of  the  man;  she  had  by  far  a  more 
technical  grasp  on  economics  than  he  had,  and  he 
wished  that  Don  were  with  him,  behind  whose 
greater  intelligence  he  might  retire  and  reorgan 
ize.  Finally,  he  was  forced  to  admit  the  limits  of 
his  knowledge,  and  then  Joan  liked  him  a  good 
deal,  and  took  a  sort  of  proprietory  interest  in 
him,  that  he  could  never  have  consciously  aroused 
in  her,  no  matter  how  he  had  tried.  He  would 
have  thought  once  that  such  an  intellectual  sub 
mission  would  disgust  him,  but  he  found  it  unex 
pectedly  pleasant  and  laughed  a  little  at  it,  and 
felt  proud  of  Joan.  He  learned  of  her  own  fame 
at  Radcliffe  with  an  odd  satisfaction. 

While  they  were  talking,  Helen  Graff  came  in, 
and  joined  them.  Peter  liked  her;  she  was  a  cor 
rect  complement  to  Joan.  They  were  both  en 
thusiastic,  but  where  Joan  was  cool  and  precise, 
her  friend  was  ardent  and  vague.  Peter  thought 
that  she  was  probably  a  woman  with  feelings,  but 
that  one  could  either  bear  with  them,  or  else  argue 
about  them  intelligently. 

When  Helen  went,  Peter  commented  again  on 
her  seeming  lack  of  self-consciousness,  and  again 
expressed  surprise  that  Joan  should  have  called 
her  shy. 


152  PETER    KINDRED 

"It  seems  so,  doesn't  it!"  Joan  said.  "And 
yet,  you  are  quite  wrong  about  Helen.  Do  you 
know,  Peter,  I  have  seen  her  come  from  a  dance, 
and  cry." 

It  gave  Peter  a  shock  to  hear  Joan. call  him  by 
name.  That,  and  the  astonishment  at  what  Joan 
had  said  left  him  fairly  mute.  It  was  the  first 
time  that  she  had  called  him  Peter,  although  he 
had  called  her  Joan  as  manfully  as  he  could 
early  in  the  visit.  As  for  Helen,  it  was  unbe 
lievable. 

*  '  But  why  on  earth  ? "  he  murmured. 

Joan  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "Just  out  of  dis 
appointment  with  herself.  She  always  thinks  that 
she  has  done  badly.  .  .  .  But,  do  you  know,  I 
think  that  I  should  like  to  meet  your  friend,  Don 
Mark.  Shall  If" 

"You  certainly  shall.    That's  splendid." 

"I  think  that  Helen  would  like  to  meet  him, 
too." 

"Great." 

"We  might  have  tea  together,  or  lunch  some 
day.  I'm  curious  to  see  if  I  am  really  the  sort  of 
woman  he  can  talk  to." 

"Lunch  or  tea,  just  as  you  say.  At  the  Lan 
tern — or  in  Boston?" 

"Goodness,  no!  We  could  only  eat  at  the  Cock 
Horse." 

"Right  0.    How  would  tomorrow  do?" 

Joan  smiled.  "You  impatient  creature,"  she 
said.  "Tomorrow  would  not  do  at  all.  But  the 


PETER   KINDRED  153 

day  after  .  .  .  and  let  us  make  it  tea,  because 
luncheon  is  too  businesslike." 

Peter  went  back  to  Don  in  high  excitement,  and 
found  him  busily  reading  the  financial  section  of 
the  Boston  Transcript.  At  such  a  sober  sight 
Peter  caught  his  exuberance  and  held  it,  and  an 
nounced  their  tea  engagement  as  casually  as  he 
could.  Don  pretended  not  to  hear,  but  frowned 
heavily  at  his  paper.  So  Peter  repeated  what 
Joan  had  said  of  Don.  The  paper  fell  at  last,  and 
Don  stared  at  him  open-mouthed. 

"Holy  suffering  mackerel!"  he  cried,  "did  you 
tell  the  woman  that?  Then  I  shall  certainly  not 
go." 

"Oh,"  said  Peter  airily,  "as  you  say." 

"Besides,"  grumbled  Don,  "I  have  to  attend  a 
class." 

"Bight,"  said  Peter. 

"Where  are  we  to  meet?' 9 

The  next  day  was  newly  pleasant  to  Peter. 
Through  the  drowse  of  lectures,  the  slow,  warm 
hours,  the  small  and  intimate  tasks,  flowed  a  tide 
of  contentment,  rippled  faintly  with  excitement. 
Peter  thought  that  in  Don,  he  himself  was  putting 
his  best  foot  forward;  that  Joan* would  like  Don 
for  himself,  and  Peter  the  better  for  Don ;  that  he 
would  be  making  more  certain  their  friendship, 
and  that  he  would  be  showing  Joan,  besides,  that 
after  all,  he  was  not  entirely  as  unintelligent  as 
she  may  have  thought  him.  A  dozen  times  during 
the  day  he  had  the  mind  to  talk  to  Don  about  the 


154  PETER    KINDRED 

coming  tea  party  and  Joan  and  Helen,  but  laughed 
shame  at  himself  for  his  boyishness.  Yet  at  sup 
per  Don  began  talking  about  it,  and  Peter 
realized  with  amusement  that  Don  was  even  more 
excited  than  himself,  but  Don  hid  it  behind  a 
mask  of  surly  sarcasm. 

The  next  afternoon,  dressed  with  immaculate 
carelessness,  they  walked  up  Brattle  Street  to 
gether  to  the  Cock  Horse.  As  they  settled  into 
their  seats  at  a  table  in  a  corner,  Joan  and  Helen 
came  in,  red-cheeked,  stamping  light  snow  from 
their  shoes.  Peter  jumped  up  and  led  them  to  his 
table,  where  Don  was  standing,  half  in  confusion. 
Helen  began  to  talk  at  once,  but  Joan  sat  down 
with  a  calm  smile;  she  was  entirely  at  her  ease, 
and  beckoned  Peter  to  sit  near  to  her. 

" Helen  very  nearly  didn't  come,"  she  whis 
pered  to  him. 

Peter  whispered  back,  "Don  wouldn't  come 
either.  But  I  couldn't  have  kept  him  away." 
They  smiled-at  each  other. 

Don,  answering  Helen  almost  at  random  at  first, 
grew  interested  in  something  she  was  saying.  The 
waitress  stood  patiently  behind  them  waiting  for 
their  order.  Filially,  Joan  ordered  for  them,  and 
a  little  later  chocolate  and  toast  and  marmalade 
were  brought  to  their  table  in  quaint,  heavy  china. 
By  that  time  the  conversation  had  grown  general. 
Then  as  Don  was  talking  to  Helen,  she  took  a  sip 
of  chocolate,  and  gave  it  two  quick  chews  before 
swallowing  it.  Peter  caught  Don's  eye  and 


PETER    KINDRED  155 

grinned  so  wickedly  that  Don  grew  fiery  red  and 
swallowed  a  mouthful  of  much  too  hot  chocolate, 
and  coughed  and  gasped,  to  Helen's  horror,  while 
Peter  laughed  unrestrainedly.  When  Don  had  got 
his  breath  back  again,  he  shook  his  fist  at  Peter 
across  the  table,  whereat  Peter  laughed  more  than 
ever.  Helen  was  prettily  worried  about  him  and 
hoped  that  he  wouldn  't  choke  any  more  and  offered 
him  water;  there  was  not  any  primness  or  con 
straint  after  that,  but  the  four  sat  together  in 
friendly  warmth  while  the  dusk  grew  outside  and 
the  shadows  on  the  snow  deepened  into  blue. 
Finally  the  talk  came  to  music,  through  a  number 
of  things. 

"You  must  certainly  hear  Tod  und  Verkla- 
rung,"  Helen  said.  " Mustn't  they,  Joan?" 

"  Isn't  that  very  modern?"  Don  asked. 
"Strauss,  or  someone?" 

"Heavens,"  Helen  cried,  "Strauss  is  old  fash 
ioned." 

"I  get  very  little  out  of  the  moderns,"  Don  said 
frankly.  "It's  my  own  fault,  of  course.  I  don't 
understand  them." 

"Last  week,"  Peter  said,  "during  the  last 
movement  of  the  New  World  I  absolutely  sort  of 
exploded,  and  bits  of  me  kept  floating  around  near 
the  ceiling,  bumping  into  the  statues." 

"So  did  I,"  Don  admitted. 

"I  think  you  go  mostly  to  hear  those  big  trum 
pets  like  pretzels,  what-you-may-call-'ems,"  Peter 
said. 


156  PETER    KINDRED 

Helen  remarked  that,  of  course,  Dvorak  was  no 
modern,  either. 

"Well,"  Peter  said,  "I  think  that's  the  sort  of 
thing  music  ought  to  be.  It  ought  to  make  a  man 
want  to  go  out  and  work ;  it  ought  to  fill  him  full 
of  courage  to  live  and  produce  and  .  .  .  breed, 
and  all  that.  And  poetry,  too,  and  art."  He 
wound  up  triumphantly,  thinking  of  Jill. 

"That's  Carver,  of  course,"  Joan  said. 

"Most  of  the  modern  music  I've  heard  .  .  .  the 
really  modern,"  Peter  went  on,  "would  just  send 
a  man  to  sleep  or  something." 

"For  the  most  part,"  Joan  said,  "I  find  the 
moderns  rather  bewildered  emotionally,  and  al 
most  pathetic,  don't  you  think?" 

"I  suppose  it's  rather  our  fault,"  Don  said. 
"It's  all  too  complicated  for  us  to  follow." 

"No,"  Joan  answered,  "It's  a  glorification  of 
pure  sensuousness.  Don't  you  see,  it's  meant  to 
be  as  unintelligible  as  perfume.  We're  not  meant 
to  follow  it,  but  to  sort  of  take  a  deep  breath  of 
it,  and  then  let  it  mean  something.  Like  a  cubist 
picture." 

Peter  looked  happily  over  at  his  friend.  Helen 
was  sitting  beside  him,  her  eyes  shining  with  in 
terest  at  the  discussion,  and  Peter  fairly  bubbled 
with  content  at  the  manner  in  which  the  after 
noon  was  passing. 

"Besides,"  Joan  was  saying  in  her  precise  way, 
"don't  you  think  that  the  majority  of  artists  to 
day  are  more  intent  on  fame  than  on  greatness! 


PETER   KINDRED  157 

Fame  lies  in  the  public,  you  see,  and  greatness 
would  lie  in  their  own  selves."  She  blushed  the 
least  bit  and  looked  down  at  her  plate.  ' '  I  didn  't 
just  think  of  that,"  she  said,  "I  thought  of  it  a 
long  while  ago." 

"It's  awfully  good,  though,"  Peter  said  eagerly. 

Joan  smiled  and  went  on.  "I  think  perhaps 
there  are  too  many  famous  men  all  expressing 
themselves  as  fast  as  ever  they  can,  and  setting  a 
bad  example." 

"Why,  Joan!"  said  Helen,  surprised  at  her 
friend's  earnestness. 

"Yes,  I  do,"  Joan  said  defiantly,  and  sat  up 
straight  and  prim  in  her  chair,  her  cheeks  pink. 

"I  do  wish  that  David  had  met  you,"  Peter  said 
in  a  low  voice  to  Joan.  She  looked  at  him  vaguely, 
still  troubled  with  the  echoes  of  her  own  vehe 
mence. 

"David?"  she  asked. 

"Well  ...  he  is  in  France  now.    A  musician." 

Later,  as  they  went  home  together,  Helen  said 
to  Joan.  "You  old  bluffer!  Whatever  will  they 
think?" 

Joan  walked  happily  along.  "It  was  fun, 
though,  wasn't  it?"  she  said. 

"Yes,  very.    Except  for  my  conscience." 

Joan  laughed  and  squeezed  Helen's  arm. 
"Wasn't  Peter  funny  and  full  of  awe?" 

"He's  always  that  way.  Did  you  like  his 
friend?" 

"Don  Mark?    Did  you?" 


158  PETER    KINDRED 

Helen  hesitated  a  moment  and  looked  thought 
fully  before  her.  "Very  much,"  she  said  in  a 
voice  that  seemed  to  be  deepened  by  the  very  thin 
nest  slice  of  tone. 

At  the  same  time,  in  his  room  on  Holyoke,  Don 
was  stretching  out  his  arms  between  one  of  the 
most  brazen  yawns  Peter  had  ever  seen.  Peter, 
sitting  at  the  edge  of  the  old  morris  chair,  his 
knees  up  under  his  chin,  his  fingers  clasped  about 
his  ankles,  was  smiling  up  at  Don  half  amused  and 
half  questioning.  Don  brought  his  clenched  fists 
slowly  up,  up,  and  slowly  down,  while  his  mouth 
closed  and  his  body  relaxed.  It  was  a  stupendous 
bit  of  carelessness. 

"Oh,"  he  said,  reaching  for  his  pipe,  "they're 
all  right." 

Peter  had  not  answered  his  mother's  last  gos 
sipy  letter.  There  had  been  other  things  he 
wanted  to  do  at  the  time,  and  as  the  days  went  by 
and  there  seemed  always  to  be  other  things  of  one 
sort  or  another,  it  was  increasingly  hard  to  sit  at 
his  desk,  and  gossip  back.  There  was  nothing  to 
tell  his  mother;  there  rarely  was,  but  he  managed 
to  find  a  bit  of  harmless  incident  here  and  there, 
and  these  he  put  into  his  letters.  Now  that  his 
life  seemed  to  have  taken  a  sudden  twist,  he 
could  think  of  nothing  to  talk  of  save  Joan, 
and,  unfortunately,  nothing  to  say  about  her, 
for,  indeed,  he  did  have  nothing  to  say  about 
her,  even  to  Don,  and  so,  of  course,  nothing  to  his 


PETER   KINDRED  159 

mother.  He  wished  to  take  nothing  before  his 
mother  that  was  not  definitely  settled  in  his  own 
mind;  he  felt  that  she  played  clumsily  with  his 
thoughts,  and  with  his  adventures,  and,  far  from 
respecting  them,  was  carelessly  curious  to  pick 
them  apart.  So  he  kept  from  her  any  thought  he 
was  not  entirely  sure  of,  and  gave  her  only  those 
settled  ideas  she  could  juggle  without  hurting. 
It  may  be  that  if  she  had  seen  how  unsettled  Peter 
was  for  the  most  part,  and  how  lacking  in  the  ar 
rogant  confidence  that  he  seemed  to  have,  she 
would  have  been  more  tolerant  of  him;  but  I  am 
afraid  she  would  have  been  more  curious,  as  well, 
and  more  intent  on  meddling. 

Peter's  silence  was  accepted  quietly  at  home, 
but  not  without  some  bitter  feeling  of  resignation. 
It  was  not  unexpected,  but  it  was  misunderstood ; 
for  while  Peter  had  no  purpose  in  not  writing,  his 
mother  and  father  thought  that  it  was  the  out 
growth  of  his  whole  tendency  away  from  them, 
and  felt  it  keenly.  His  father  started  more  than 
one  letter  to  him,  to  beg  of  him  to  write  to  his 
mother,  but  an  unhappy  pride  kept  him  from  ever 
sending  them. 

Such  a  state  of  affairs  never  entered  Peter's 
head.  He  was  living  idly,  reading  and  talking, 
spending  some  hours  in  the  rooms  of  acquaint 
ances,  Don's  friends,  or  his  own.  It  was  not  a 
very  different  Harvard  from  his  own,  that  he 
found.  For  instance,  there  was  one  man  intent 
upon  philosophy,  and  another  who  was  studying 


160  PETER    KINDRED 

to  teach  history;  there  was  a  group  of  Carver- 
ians,  who  knew  Don  slightly,  and  had  heard  of 
Joan ;  a  musician,  unlike  David,  sober  and  exact ; 
an  aesthete  or  so ;  one  spirit  mildly  reminiscent  of 
Frank.  Few  were  entirely  unknown  to  the  oth 
ers,  and  Peter  himself  was  not  a  strange  name  to 
all  of  them.  Some  followed  this  man  or  that,  some 
were  intimate  with  professors,  some  lonely.  All 
these  men,  with  few  exceptions,  had  passed 
through  the  same  various  phases  of  intellectual 
life  that  Peter  had  passed  through,  coming  to  col 
lege  undecided,  often  thoughtless,  though  some 
times  with  a  real  bent,  dipping  casually  into  dif 
ferent  theories,  hearing  rumors  of  one  thing  and 
another,  tasting  here  and  there,  growing,  develop 
ing,  judging,  comparing,  slowly  deciding.  To 
such  men  college  meant  talk,  books,  professors, 
arguments,  years  of  freedom  to  discuss  and  leisure 
to  appreciate.  To  many,  the  clubs,  the  teams,  the 
social  events  of  Harvard  were  as  far  and  strange 
as  though  they  were  of  another  land.  For  a  while 
Peter  could  not  understand  why  he  had  not  known 
them  before,  had  not  found  them  out  one  by  one, 
his  earlier  years,  but  in  truth  their  earlier  years 
had  been  much  the  same  as  his ;  they  were  men  of 
few  but  significant  friendships;  they  were  de 
veloping  when  he  was  developing,  and  grew  as  he 
grew;  if  he  had  met  them  before,  he  would  not 
have  recognized  their  parallel  trend  to  his. 

He  did  not  join  forces  with  the  other  Carver- 
ians,  as  Don  did.    He  listened  to  their  talk,  how- 


PETER    KINDRED  161 

ever,  with  deep  interest,  as  he  listened  to  the  liber 
als.  He  found  no  reason  to  make  small  points 
clear.  Underneath  it  all,  all  the  talk,  the  argu 
ment,  the  activity  of  the  different  groups,  the 
longing  and  the  enthusiasm,  it  was  given  him  to 
catch  a  stir  of  passing  youth,  of  generations  rest 
less,  gone  before,  of  restless  generations  yet  to 
come  and  to  inherit  his  life  there,  the  familiar 
halls,  the  paths,  the  walks,  afternoons  and  eve 
nings,  the  well  beloved  things.  He  thought  of 
what  Frank  had  said  that  afternoon  in  autumn, 
with  the  blue  roof  tops  of  Harvard  before  them, 
distant  through  the  trees.  He  wanted  a  son  to 
share  in  that  inheritance. 

Peter  would  have  nothing  of  love,  bnt  he  was 
less  stern  than  Don.  He  had  softened  his  views 
to  allow  for  the  general  desirability  of  woman, 
although  he  still  contended  that  romantic  love 
was  rot,  and  fit  for  children.  He  was  willing  to 
admit  that  there  might  be  some  deeper  affection 
between  a  man  and  a  woman  than  he  could  find 
in  the  friendship  of  two  men,  based  upon  his  dis 
covery  in  a  woman  of  something  strange  and 
graceful,  something  attractive  and  bewildering. 

"I  do  not  accept  this  romantic  twaddle  about 
love  at  all,"  he  said  to  Don,  "and  still  I  grant 
some  indescribable  feminine  attractiveness.  How 
you  can  consistently  deny  that  is  more  than  I  can 
understand." 

"If  you  were  as  logical  as  you  think  yon  are, 


162  PETER    KINDRED 

Peter  my  boy,  you  would  see  that  yon  are  con 
fusing  intellectual  appreciation  with  silk  stock 
ings.  Fie!" 

"I'm  not  thinking  of  silk  stockings  at  all," 
Peter  answered  hotly.  "But  what  I  say  is  that 
there  is  something  more  than  a  woman's  intelli 
gence  to  be  considered.  Something  that  isn't  sen 
sual,  either." 

"It  isn't  possible.  There  is  only  intelligence 
and  sensuality." 

"You  can't  say  that  of  Joan."  Peter  looked  at 
his  friend  steadily. 

'  '  I  could— but  I  sha  'n  't.    You  wouldn  't  like  it. ' ' 

"Don't  be  absurd!" 

"No,  sir.  I  sha 'n't  say  a  word.  But  I  will  say 
this  ...  If  there's  something  in  a  woman  that 
can't  be  placed  in  the  intellect,  and  reached 
through  intelligence,  and  something  that  can't  be 
placed  in  the  body  and  reached  through  debauch 
.  .  .  why,  then,  it  can't  be  reached  at  all,  and 
you'll  be  jealous  of  it  all  the  rest  of  your  days." 

"Not  I.  Jealousy  is  too  dangerous  a  thing  .  .  . 
uncontrolled  emotion.  Of  course  there  is  jeal 
ousy,  but  it  has  to  be  integrated." 

Integrated  was  a  word  new  to  Peter's  vocabu 
lary.  He  had  picked  it  up  from  one  of  the  philoso 
phers,  and  he  enjoyed  using  it.  Don  smiled  when 
ever  he  heard  it. 

After  four  days  of  biting  cold  that  sent  the  pass 
ing  students  scuttling  along  Holyoke  to  and  from 
the  Yard,  and  brought  out  huge  brown  raccoon 


PETER   KINDRED  163 

coats  from  the  closets  of  the  patricians,  Peter 
heard  that  there  was  skating  on  the  Charles,  and 
thought  at  once  of  Joan.  He  was  afraid  that  Don 
would  object  to  going  along,  and  would  not  care 
to  ask  Helen,  too,  but  he  hoped  that  Don  could  be 
won  over,  for  there  was  so  much  unfamiliar  in 
taking  any  woman  skating  that  he  wanted  some 
one  else  with  him  to  share  it.  For  a  full  morning 
he  caught  delicious  glimpses  of  himself  carrying 
Joan's  skates  down  Boylston  Street,  while  she 
walked  beside  him,  and  putting  her  skates  on  her, 
finally,  at  the  bank  of  the  river.  That  gave  him 
the  greatest  pleasure  of  all,  and  he  secretly  en 
joyed  the  faint  blush  it  occasioned  him. 

He  was  immensely  relieved  to  find  that  Don 
would  go,  and  had,  besides,  no  great  objection  to 
Helen  going,  too.  Peter  telephoned  to  Joan  from 
the  pharmacy  between  lectures,  and  heard  his  coin 
chink  in  the  pay  station,  with  a  hollow  and  beat 
ing  heart.  Joan  was  delighted  with  the  idea,  and 
promised  Helen's  eagerness  also,  and  so  it  was  ar 
ranged.  Peter  would  rather  have  written  her  a 
note,  but  he  was  afraid  that  the  ice  would  not 
hold. 

The  day  of  their  skating  was  bright  and  yellow 
and  cold,  and  Peter  found  himself  walking  down 
Boylston  Street  with  Joan,  carrying  her  skates, 
quite  as  he  had  imagined  he  would,  save  for  the 
difference  that  he  was  merrier  and  happier.  Don 
and  Helen  swung  along,  a  few  paces  behind  them, 
and  he  could  hear  their  talk  and  laughter.  They 


164  PETER    KINDRED 

came  opposite  the  power  house  and  one  of  the 
boat  clubs,  and  turned  along  the  river  bank. 
Before  them,  the  Charles  spread  in  a  smooth, 
white  sheet,  shining  and  mottled,  black  with  occa 
sional  deep  water  beneath  the  ice.  A  few  eager 
muckers  were  playing  at  the  edge  of  the  ice,  while 
further  out  across  the  river  folk  skated  in  the 
wind,  in  groups  and  alone,  with  flashes  of  color 
among  hats  and  scarves.  In  the  sun  Joan  sat  on  a 
bench  and  Peter  knelt  at  her  feet,  fastening  her 
shoes.  He  thought  how  bony  and  angular  her 
feet  were.  She  was  not  at  all  ashamed  of  them, 
however,  and  put  them  out  boldly  to  be  laced; 
when  her  skating  shoes  were  on  they  looked  trim 
and  slender.  Peter,  with  hands  made  awkward 
by  the  cold,  laced  his  own  shoes,  and  they  scram 
bled  to  the  ice  and  sailed  together  out  across  the 
river.  Don  and  Helen,  having  fastened  their  own 
skates,  were  already  ahead  of  them,  moving  in 
long,  graceful  strides.  Peter  tucked  his  hand 
under  Joan's  elbow;  she  bent  her  wrist  and 
reached  for  it;  they  locked  their  fingers  together 
and  struck  out  after  their  friends. 

Luckily  enough,  Peter  skated  well,  for  Joan 
went  swiftly,  and  with  the  wind  behind  them  they 
were  flying  over  the  smooth  ice.  The  late  winter 
sun  beat  a  warm  tattoo  on  their  faces,  and  filled 
their  eyes  with  yellow  light. 

" Isn't  it  splendid."  Joan  said,  as  they  swept 
past  Don  and  Helen,  and  waved  back  at  them. 
4 'You  skate  very  well.  I'm  glad  of  that  ...  I 


PETER   KINDRED  165 

rather  thought  I'd  have  to  pull  yon  around,  and 
we  were  sure  that  Mr.  Mark  would  fall  all  over 
everything." 

"Why,"  asked  Peter,  "do  yon  always  expect 
these  things  of  me?  Do  I  look  so  helpless  and 
timid  and  ...  all  that!" 

"Well,  yes,  you  do  a  bit,'*  Joan  answered  him. 
"You  look  as  though  yon  smoked  cigarettes 
and  wrote  poetry — not  very  good  poetry — and 
danced." 

"I  smoke  a  pipe,  and  once  in  a  while  a  cigar, 
after  dinner,  when  I  feel  important  ...  I  enjoy 
that.  I'd  like  to  write  poetry — even  bad  poetry, 
but  I'd  never  be  able  to  write  even  a  jingle.  No — 
and  I  don't  dance.  I  used  to,  until  people  started 
to  make  a  business  of  it,  and  then  I  gave  up.  I 
couldn't  keep  abreast  of  the  new  steps,  and  that 
made  me  seem  awfully  awkward  and  ignorant  to 
everybody.  But  even  now  I  can't  help  feeling 
that  all  this  bother  has  gone  on  about  dancing 
because  it 's  just  another  way  of  being  famous  and 
social  without  bothering  people's  brains  at  all 
while  they're  being  it." 

"Yes,"  Joan  said,  "but,  of  course,  there's  more 
in  it  than  that." 

"There's  always  more  in  things  than  just  the 
little  I  manage  to  say,  but  there's  usually  so  much 
more  that  I'd  never  finish  talking  ...  so  I  just 
pick  out  one  thing  .  .  .  whrup!"  he  cried  as  Joan 
stumbled  and  he  caught  her  tightly  to  him,  while 
with  her  whole  weight  on  his  arm  she  swept  along 


166  PETER    KINDRED 

on  one  foot.  After  a  moment  they  came  into  the 
rhythm  of  their  stride  again,  but  Peter  still  held 
her  closely,  and  she  was  content  at  that,  and 
grasped  his  fingers  tightly.  He  felt  faintly  atrem- 
ble,  and  thoughtful  of  her. 

"It's  my  fault,  of  course,"  he  told  her.  "I 
shouldn't  have  been  talking  so  importantly,  when 
we  should  be  skating.  I  sha'n't  talk  again. " 

She  smiled  and  gave  his  arm  a  friendly  pres 
sure  that  put  him  into  splendid  spirits  with  him 
self.  They  skated  on  more  evenly  and  swiftly  to 
ward  "Watertown  and  Brighton,  while  the  sun  sank 
lower  and  lower  and  the  afternoon  drew  near  to 
dusk.  Then  they  turned  in  a  flashing  sweep  and 
started  back  again,  past  Don  and  Helen,  who 
turned  after  them  and  raced  them.  Together  they 
lengthened  their  stroke  and  put  more  power  in  it, 
and  skated  so  for  nearly  a  mile,  until  the  other 
two  gave  up  and  coasted  and  drifted  behind.  They 
had  unlinked  their  arms,  holding  each  other  by 
the  hands  to  travel  more  swiftly ;  now  they  drew 
together  again.  Peter,  half  breathless,  looked  at 
Joan  with  shining  eyes.  The  flight  into  the  wind 
had  whipped  the  color  into  her  cheeks,  and  in  the 
turning  dusk  her  lithe  young  body  skimmed  be 
side  him  like  some  impetuous  bird.  Her  chin  was 
buried  in  the  fur  about  her  neck,  and  only  her 
eyes  answered  him  and  then  looked  steadily  ahead. 
He  thought  that  he  had  never  seen  so  delicately 
chiselled  a  being,  and  he  felt  his  spirit  grow  wide 
and  warm  to  make  room  for  her. 


PETER   KINDRED  167 

It  was  afterglow  when  they  came  at  last  to  the 
"bridge  again,  and  saw  before  them  the  boat 
houses,  the  distant  lights  of  Boston,  and  the  lam 
bent  broad  windows  of  the  power  house,  glaring 
with  an  uncanny  emerald  light  through  the  winter 
evening.  Beyond  them  towered  the  cold,  white 
circle  of  the  stadium,  gray  in  the  dim  light,  and 
behind  them  the  sky  was  fading  to  a  clear  green, 
with  one  star  bright  in  the  west.  In  silence  they 
coasted  slowly  to  the  bank,  and  Peter,  with 
numbed  fingers,  knelt  before  Joan  again  and  un 
did  her  shoes,  while  she  looked  soberly  over  his 
head  at  the  river  and  the  hastening  forms  of  Don 
and  Helen.  He  thought  how  lean  and  strong  her 
feet  were,  how  clearly  etched,  and  hoped  tremen 
dously  that  they  were  not  cold,  so  much,  indeed, 
that  he  did  not  think  how  cold  he  was  himself,  his 
hands  and  feet,  until  from  his  tight  skating  shoes 
he  struggled  into  his  wide  walking  shoes  and  stood 
up,  and  then  he  could  do  no  more  than  limp  help 
lessly.  Don  and  Helen  drew  near  with  a  fine  flash 
ing  of  skates  and  ringing  ice  and  laughter,  and  the 
four  walked  stiffly  back  toward  the  Square,  their 
blood  leaping  through  their  young  bodies,  silent 
and  content. 

The  upshot  of  their  afternoon  together  was  that 
they  were  to  be  friends.  Helen  announced  the 
fact  to  Joan,  and  Don  more  clumsily  gave  Peter 
to  understand  as  much.  But  neither  Peter  nor 
Joan  did  anything  more  than  smile  happily  to 


168  PETER    KINDRED 

themselves,  and  hum  a  snatch  of  tune,  as,  on  op 
posite  sides  of  Cambridge,  they  went  to  their 
classes  in  the  morning. 

Joan,  with  candid  suddenness,  took  Peter  into 
her  confidence  and  her  friendship,  though  as  for 
confidences,  there  was  little  of  that,  for  Joan  had 
no  jealously  guarded  thoughts,  and  her  simple, 
straightforward  life  was  entirely  apparent.  On 
the  other  hand,  for  all  that  Peter  had  thought  him 
self  apportioned  justly  between  Don  and  Frank 
and  his  lone,  half  forgotten  love,  and  David,  he 
found  that  there  was  an  overwhelming  part  of 
himself  he  had  not  known  was  empty,  and  in  that 
part  Joan  installed  herself.  Indeed,  as  the  winter 
wore  on,  that  part  grew  greater  and  greater,  and 
began  at  last  to  urge  dominion  on  the  provinces 
ruled  by  his  other  friends. 

They  skated  again,  Joan  and  Peter  alone,  and 
then  on  a  Saturday,  the  four  of  them,  all  day  in 
the  mellow  sun,  making  a  gleeful  lunch  of  sand 
wiches  and  hot  coffee  from  a  thermos  bottle  Don 
had  carried,  far  up  the  river  toward  Watertown. 
The  next  day,  Sunday,  Peter  and  Don  were  lonely 
and  restless,  and  since  Joan  was  in  Boston,  they 
carried  Helen  off  for  a  long  walk,  and  laughed  and 
talked  and  strode  the  fearful  afternoon  away.  In 
justice  to  Don  it  must  be  observed  that  he  would 
as  lief  have  walked  with  some  philosopher  or 
economist  from  his  acquaintance,  but  Peter  wanted 
to  see  Joan  again,  and  although  he  could  not,  he 
thought  he  would  see  more  of  Joan  in  Helen  than 


PETER   KINDRED  169 

in  some  argumentative  upholder  of  the  single  tax, 
or  no  tax  at  all. 

He  called  again  at  Bertram  Hall,  but  without 
the  need  of  masculine  snobbery  to  sustain  him,  and 
rather  enjoyed  being  peeked  at  by  two  girls  with 
solemn  eyes,  before  Joan  came  down.  Sometimes 
they  walked  out  Brattle  Street  together,  past 
Longfellow's  house,  past  gardened  and  well-ar- 
bored  homes  that  Peter  envied  for  their  gentle 
ness,  their  trees  and  lawns,  and  the  air  of  years 
about  them.  From  such  walks  they  came  back  at 
tea  time,  and  sat  together  in  a  corner  of  the  Cock 
Horse,  talking  in  low  voices,  and  patiently  wish 
ing  that  there  were  more  toast  and  marmalade. 
Often  they  met  in  the  Square,  and  then  Peter  went 
with  Joan  upon  her  errands  and  sometimes  cut  a 
class  to  walk  her  back  to  Radcliffe  again.  Some 
times  he  met  Helen,  and  more  than  once  with  Don 
along  the  three  of  them  trudged  about  the  country 
while  Joan  steadfastly  attended  to  her  lectures. 
Little  by  little  they  grew  to  frequent  the  Cock 
Horse,  and  to  consider  one  table  there  at  lunch- 
time  their  own  private  property,  but  it  was  rarely 
that  the  four  lunched  together,  as  their  hours  fell 
differently,  but  more  often  two  of  them,  or 
three.  But  all  the  time  neither  Peter  nor  Don 
said  any  word  to  each  other  about  either  Joan  or 
Helen. 

Snow  had  fallen  lightly  over  Cambridge,  a  thin 
covering,  but  enough  to  spoil  the  skating  soon 
after  their  full  day  on  the  river.  A  week  later  a 


170  PETER    KINDRED 

great  storm  swept  upon  Cambridge,  blowing  slant 
ing  flakes  of  snow  driving  from  the  north,  piling 
drifts  and  smothering  the  roofs  for  three  days. 
At  the  end  of  it  the  clouds  tattered  into  flying  gray 
strips,  the  sky  welled  blue  again,  and  the  sun  spar 
kled  and  shone  on  the  deep  coverlet  of  white  that 
weighed  down  the  branches  of  trees,  and  stood  out 
fatly  upon  the  roof  tops,  like  some  impossibly  gor 
geous  meringue  upon  a  pie. 

The  snow  changed  the  walks  to  afternoons  at 
Bertram  Hall,  with  the  famous  mistress  of  the 
Hall  taking  her  dignified  tea  in  her  small  room 
nearby  them,  or  sometimes  among  the  shops  of 
Boston,  when  Joan  needed  a  bit  of  china  or  a  can 
dlestick  or  a  print.  Sometimes,  not  often,  she  tele 
phoned  to  Peter  when  she  wanted  his  company, 
and  he  put  everything  aside  to  go  with  her.  He 
enjoyed  their  shopping  adventures;  to  walk  to 
gether  along  Tremont  or  Boylston  Street,  with 
people  hurrying  by,  and  just  a  touch  of  briskness 
in  the  wind  and  in  the  sun  on  the  snow ;  to  go  im- 
portanfly  into  shops  and  stare  wisely  at  luxurious 
trifles,  and  then  go  importantly  out  again.  Peter 
could  never  have  done  such  a  thing  alone,  but  Joan 
was  to  the  manner  born. 

"Tell  me  why,"  he  asked  her,  after  they  Had 
been  admiring  a  very  old  brass  candlestick  in  a 
quaint  shop,  "an  old  thing  is  always  so  much  more 
expensive  and  desirable  than  a  new  one?" 

"Don't  you  see  any  difference,  yourself, 
Peter  ? ' '  Joan  challenged  him. 


PETER   KINDRED  171 

"Very  little,  I  must  admit  .  .  .  except  that  a 
new  one  looks  shinier  .  .  .  and  more  made." 

"Well,  that's  it,  really.  The  love  of  antiques 
is  a  sort  of  culture,  an  appreciation  of  things  that 
seem  somehow  to  have  happened,  and  not  to  have 
been  made." 

"Yes,  I  see  ...  only  that  it  seems  to  be  rather 
an  attempt  to  get  away  from  the  work  bench." 

"I  suppose  it  is." 

"That  isn't  very  Carverian,  is  it?"  Peter  asked 
soberly. 

"Not  if  it's  carried  to  an  extreme,  of  course." 

"I  knew  a  chap  my  first  year,"  Peter  said, 
"who  sent  all  over  England  for  a  certain  shade  of 
leather  to  bind  a  book.  He  wanted  it  to  match  a 
tie  he  liked.  He  was  an  awfully  silly  ass." 

"Well?"  Joan  said. 

"I  don't  mean  to  draw  a  perfect  analogy.  But 
would  you  say  that  an  old  candlestick  on  your 
mantelpiece  would  make  you  more  efficient  than  a 
new  one?  Or  that  you'd  be  healthier  because  you 
ate  your  dinner  from  an  old  table  ...  at  great 
expense  ?  No,  it 's  just  a  waste. '  *  And  then  Peter 
went  on  very  logically  to  outargue  Joan  upon  the 
matter  of  the  value  of  antiques,  and  when  she  had 
admitted  the  indubitable  logic  of  his  argument  he 
was  highly  pleased  with  himself,  but  it  took  not  a 
mite  of  pleasure  away  from  his  excursions  into 
the  shops  with  her,  nor  did  it  detract  at  all  from 
the  flavor  of  his  tea  afterward.  Joan  bought  no 
old  furniture,  and  neither  did  he.  As  for  Peter, 


172  PETER    KINDRED 

he  would  have  been  just  as  happy  wandering  in  a 
toy  shop,  if  Joan  were  along,  pricing  and  apprais 
ing  in  her  certain  voice,  at  his  side. 

But  finally  Joan,  a  bit  conscience-stricken  at  the 
days  that  went  by  so  idly,  went  sensibly  to  work 
again,  and  so  upset  Peter  by  her  quiet  and  seri 
ous  determination  to  waste  no  more  time,  that, 
after  upbraiding  himself  in  round,  Carverian 
terms  for  his  slothfulness,  he  plunged  furiously 
into  his  studies,  working  so  late  at  night  that  once 
or  twice  he  fell  asleep  over  his  books.  His  en 
thusiasm,  in  turn,  stirred  Joan  to  exaggerated  ef 
fort,  which  was  not  good  for  her.  When  the  two 
met,  they  talked  over  their  courses.  The  fact  that 
they  were  both  so  intent  upon  study,  made  work 
more  pleasant  for  each  one,  added  to  the  welfare 
of  their  consciences,  and  gave  them  a  feeling  of 
companionship;  they  set  themselves  all  the  more 
sternly  to  their  reading.  Often  at  midnight,  the 
house  hushed,  the  streets  below  his  window  ghostly 
still,  Peter,  at  his  desk,  thought  of  Joan  facing 
her  task  courageously,  and  grew  energetic  and 
light-hearted  at  the  thought.  He  knew  that  they 
were  both  living  at  last  quite  according  to  their 
beliefs,  and  the  more  tired  he  grew,  the  more  his 
spirit  drove  him  happily  on.  There  was  a  new 
note  of  sympathy  between  them,  a  new  loyalty  and 
thoughtfulness.  When  Joan's  eyes  grew  tired  and 
her  head  was  held  less  proudly  on  her  slim  neck, 
Peter  went  soberly  to  his  classes,  with  a  troubled 
face. 


PETER   KINDRED  178 

It  lasted  a  fortnight.  Then  Joan,  unused  to 
the  long  hours  she  had  been  spending  at  her 
books,  yet  urged  on  unusually  through  her  weari 
ness  by  her  pride  before  Peter,  caught  cold,  and 
went  quietly  home  with  a  fever,  there  to  lie  in  a 
tossed  bed  beside  Helen's  flowers,  while  Peter  sat 
blankly  at  his  desk  and  wondered  idly  what  the 
books  and  the  papers  might  be  that  lay  folded  so 
neatly  and  familiarly  there.  Joan  was  at  home 
for  a  week,  and  Peter,  after  the  first  day  or  so, 
made  a  half-hearted  attempt  to  go  sternly  to  work 
again,  but  it  came  to  nothing  and  trailed  away  into 
absent-mindedness. 

Joan  returned  wanly  to  Bertram  Hall,  with  a 
doctor's  implicit  orders  that  she  be  decently  spar 
ing  of  her  work,  and  Frank  came  to  Boston,  out 
of  the  north. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A  T  AN  outlandish  hour  Frank  came  thunder- 
•**•  ing  np  the  spindly  stairs  in  a  rush  of  cold 
morning,  and  fell  upon  Don,  to  Peter's  startled 
satisfaction,  for  it  gave  him  a  chance  to  be  half 
way  to  his  door  before  it  was  flung  open  and 
Frank  swept  in.  His  heavy  coat  was  as  fresh  and 
cold  as  the  early  and  windy  streets  outside ;  Peter 
was  hugged  to  its  rough  surface,  and  then  was 
whirled  back  with  Frank  to  Don's  room,  where 
that  gentleman  lay  in  an  aggrieved  pile  on  the 
floor,  wondering  through  his  sleepiness  if  it  had 
really  been  Frank  he  had  heard. 

The  three  of  them  breakfasted  royally  at  the 
Lantern,  where  Frank  was  welcomed  hardly  less 
happily  by  Susan  and  Mrs.  Prentis.  Susan,  in 
fact,  remembered  that  he  had  always  asked  for  two 
pots  of  particularly  thick  cream  for  his  cereal, 
and  she  brought  him  two  as  though  he  had  never 
been  gone,  to  Peter's  envy. 

Frank  was  full  of  his  own  adventures,  but  first 
of  all  he  must  know  the  history  of  his  two  friends. 

174 


PETER   KINDRED  175 

"I'm  a  Carverian  now,"  Peter  told  him,  and  he 
shook  his  head  sorrowfully. 

"Oh,  oh!"  he  cried,  and  pointed  an  accusing 
finger  at  Don. 

They  were  both  intensely  glad  to  have  Frank 
back  again.  He  had  not  changed  a  whit  from  his 
old  self  and  he  made  Peter  feel  as  though  he  had 
not  changed  either,  as  though  nothing  had 
changed,  as  though  nothing  ever  would. 

After  breakfast  Don  went  off  to  a  lecture,  and 
Peter  told  Frank  everything  there  was  to  tell, 
all  that  had  happened  to  him,  to  Don,  the  gossip 
of  Harvard,  Joan  and  Helen.  Frank  installed 
himself  in  his  old  room,  emptied  his  valise  over  a 
chair,  and  sprawled  out  on  the  window  seat. 
After  a  while  it  was  hard  to  believe  that  he  had 
not  always  been  there. 

Finally  he  told  Peter  why  he  was  in  Cambridge. 

"IVe  given  up  trying  to  make  a  business  man 
of  myself,  "he  said.  "I  don't  fit  in.  So  I'm  com 
ing  down  here  again  for  a  Ph.D.,  and  then  ...  I 
shall  probably  teach." 

Frank  a  teacher!  It  was  a  startling  idea,  and 
one  that  Peter  could  not  stomach  at  all.  It  was 
entirely  incongruous  to  put  Frank  among  profes 
sors.  At  Peter's  dismay  Frank  laughed  gleefully. 

"That's  the  way  I  felt  about  it,  too,  at  first, 
until  I  realized  that  I  was  never  going  to  have  any 
day  but  Sunday  to  myself  for  the  rest  of  my  life 
.  .  .  Sunday,  and  such  holidays  .  .  .  And  then  I 
put  my  foot  down.  Think  what  it  means,  Peter, 


176  PETER    KINDRED 

my  lad  .  .  .  the  only  day  given  yon  to  enjoy  the 
sunlight  and  the  wind  and  the  trees  and  the  whole 
country,  is  to  be  forever  Sunday,  overrun  with 
honest  families  making  honest  noises.  And  the 
rest  of  your  life  sitting  at  a  desk,  and  going  to  bed 
at  night.  It's  not  for  me.  I  shall  sit  at  a  desk  at 
night  and  walk  when  the  sun  is  up,  and  do  my 
share  of  the  world's  thinking  out  in  the  open  air 
.  .  .  except  in  winter  .  .  .  and  even  then.  And 
besides,  I  may  do  some  good,  making  fiery  speeches 
against  Carver." 

Peter  felt  very  differently  toward  the  busy  mills 
and  offices,  but  he  could  not  find  it  in  his  mind  to 
blame  Frank  for  anything,  although  he  would  have 
argued  with  anyone  else. 

"Do  you  know,  Peter,"  Frank  went  on  to  say, 
"I  grew  to  hate  the  people  around  me.  They  had 
no  faculty  for  idleness;  they  couldn't  enjoy  a 
darn  thing." 

Peter  smiled  at  the  old  Frank  who  was  so  fa 
miliar  to  him.  He  would  not  have  disputed  with 
him  for  a  fortune.  It  would  have  been  an  impu 
dence  against  the  years  behind  him.  But  it  gave 
him  a  deal  of  pleasure  to  feel  such  a  tiny  bit  of  tol 
erance  in  himself,  and  to  know  that  he  was  silent 
only  because  he  wanted  to  be.  And  because  he  was 
glad  to  be. 

Frank's  coming  made  work  even  more  unlikely 
for  Peter.  It  was  impossible,  of  course,  to  sit  at 
home  while  Frank  and  Don  went  tramping,  or  to 
let  Frank  adventure  in  Boston  alone ;  such  things 


PETER   KINDRED  177 

were  of  more  moment  than  forty  pages  of  foreign 
exchange.  The  three  spent  their  time  living  over 
the  past  years  together.  The  very  first  night  they 
went  to  Whin's  again,  and  Peter  grew  fairly  bois 
terous. 

He  was  anxious  to  have  Frank  meet  Joan. 
Somehow,  Frank's  approval  belonged  to  her,  as 
her  due.  Besides,  he  wanted  to  show  her  to  Frank 
as  though  to  say:  See  here,  I  have  grown  and 
matured  as  much  as  this.  But  he  disliked  his  own 
eagerness,  which  seemed  boyish  to  him,  and  quite 
an  opposite  to  what  he  wanted  Frank  to  think 
him.  Because  of  it  he  waited  until  it  was  almost 
time  for  Frank  to  go  north  again,  before  he  took 
him  to  the  Cock  Horse  to  meet  Joan  and  Helen. 
But  afterward,  for  all  his  scheming,  he  was  so 
truly  eager  to  have  Frank  talk  about  her,  that 
Don  and  Frank  both  burst  out  laughing  at  him, 
and  covered  him  with  confusion,  and  his  stumbling 
explanation  served  only  to  add  to  it. 

"There  is  something  in  me,"  he  said  to  Joan 
later,  "which  never  grew  up.  It's  a  childishness, 
a  sort  of  inferiority  ...  as  though  I  had  to  be  al 
ways  praised,  or  I'd  feel  badly.  Could  it  be  breed 
ing,  do  you  think?" 

"I  hardly  think  so/'  Joan  said,  "although  I 
don't  know  much  about  it.  It  might  be  just  a 
lack  of  confidence  in  yourself,  you  know.  The 
sort  of  thing  that  sensitive  children  get  when  they 
first  begin  to  realize  that  older  folk  are  people 
just  like  themselves,  only  bigger  and  wiser  .  .  . 


178  PETER    KINDRED 

and  then  they  lose  it  again  as  soon  as  they  find 
the  older  folk  aren't  so  awfully  much  bigger  and 
wiser  after  all.  Perhaps  you  never  grew  up  so 
far." 

"Yes,  I  did,"  Peter  avowed,  "I  grew  up  at  Exe 
ter,  and  I  kept  on  growing.  But  that  part  of  me 
didn't  change.  ..." 

"Why  do  you  think  it  might  be  breeding, 
Peter?"  Joan  asked. 

"My  parents  are  like  that,  and  their  parents 
were.  People  who  aren't  what  they  know  they 
ought  to  be,  and  what  they  want  to  be.  ...  I 
don't  know.  There's  something  there,  I  think, 
that  won't  be  downed  by  any  will  to  down  it.  .  .  ." 

Joan  smiled,  and  said: 

"The  mind  is  always  fighting  that  sort  of  thing. 
But  it  takes  a  few  generations  to  make  a  real  suc 
cess  of  it." 

"Do  you  know,  Joan,  I  think  perhaps  just  such 
an  upward  trend  in  generations  is  the  thing  that 
makes  a  work-bench  philosophy  so  splendid.  I 
could  work  pretty  hard,  thinking  my  son  would 
be  a  greater  man  than  I,  and  still  no  more  than 
what's  in  me  ...  and  my  wife." 

"Peter,"  Joan  asked  suddenly,  "haven't  you 
ever  wanted  a  son  to  come  after  you  in  Harvard?" 

"Awfully,  Joan." 

"I  have,  too,  Peter.  You're  right  about  work 
ing  hard.  I  think  the  bitterest  thing  in  the  world 
would  be  not  to  be  able  to  send  my  daughter  to 
Kadcliffe.  That  is,  next  to  having  no  daughter." 


PETER   KINDRED  179 

They  were  silent  for  a  long  while.  Peter  looked 
thoughtfully  at  Joan.  She  was  very  dear  to  him, 
and  what  she  had  said  hummed  in  his  heart,  like 
a  secret  shared  with  a  beloved  friend. 

That  night  Frank  went  north  again,  and  when 
he  was  gone,  Peter  and  Don,  of  a  sudden,  were  a 
year  older. 

Peter  rather  resented  being  a  year  older,  after 
all.  He  disliked  the  fact  of  having  so  long  ago 
spent  his  freshman  season,  and  wished  vaguely 
that  he  were  not  hurrying  so  fast  across  that  lus 
trum  of  his  years.  The  summer  he  had  passed 
abroad  was  gone ;  he  did  not  want  it  to  be  so  en 
tirely  gone.  For  a  while  he  regretted  David 
keenly,  and  felt,  in  his  loss,  how  inevitably  life 
was  sweeping  him  along.  He  felt  guilty,  too,  after 
a  fashion,  that  he  had  let  David  grow  discouraged 
and  come  to  nothing.  It  ended  by  his  writing 
David  a  long  letter,  but  as  he  wrote  he  thought  of 
what  Joan  had  said  to  him  of  greatness  and  fame, 
and  he  hardly  knew  what  to  say  to  David  then. 

"It  is  the  sort  of  day  I  know  you  would  enjoy," 
he  wrote.  "The  sun  is  full,  up  and  down  Mount 
Auburn,  and  all  of  Cambridge  has  been  piled  high 
with  snow  for  nearly  a  week.  Remarkably  enough, 
there  is  no  slush,  and  the  snow  is  too  deep  for 
mud.  There  are  sleighbells  arid  wind  and  the  clink 
of  open  goloshes. 

"What  of  you,  David?  Are  you  still  a  garret 
eer?  And  did  you  find  your  great  man?  You 
must  know  Paris  marvelously  well  by  now,  and 


180  PETER    KINDRED 

you  must  be  full  of  adventures.  But  is  it  so  much 
easier  to  express  yourself,  after  all?  Don't  yon 
struggle  as  you  used  to  do?  I'm  curious,  quite 
frankly. 

"I'm  very  old  and  wise.  You  never  took  Bab 
bitt  in  Comp  Lit.,  but  the  course  was  made  for 
you.  I  was  introduced  to  your  ivory  tower,  but 
it  was  after  you  had  gone.  Otherwise  .  .  .  well, 
I  doubt  I  should  have  let  you  go  so  easily.  You 
should  have  found  your  music  in  your  own  self, 
David  .  .  .  not  in  the  quietness  of  your  life,  but 
in  its  rebellion. 

"I  had  no  mind  to  preach.  But  I  was  thinking 
of  the  woman  who  told  me  once  that  greatness  lay 
inside  one's  own  self,  and  fame  outside.  I  wish 
you  had  met  her.  Quite  slim,  with  ruddy  hair  and 
pale  blue  eyes — almost  gray — really  gray  some 
times,  and  a  sort  of  windy,  clean-hitting  mind, 
sudden  and  frank.  My  meeting  her  is  a  long 
story.  .  .  .  I've  no  idea  how  we  ever  came  to  be 
friends.  She's  a  woman  of  New  England — a  se 
nior  at  Eadcliffe — I  can  hear  all  New  England 
talking  in  her  voice — orchards,  rocks,  villages  and 
churches. 

"I  have  too  much  to  tell  you,  ever  to  hope  to  do 
it  coherently.  Frank  is  coming  back  for  a  Ph.D. 
next  year ;  he  is  disgusted  with  business ;  another 
ivory  tower.  Don  lives  in  his  room  .  .  .  and  Har 
vard  goes  on.  I  love  it — I  shall  hate  like  fury  to 
graduate. 

"I  hope  you've  not  taken  to  modern  music. 


PETER    KINDRED  181 

We've  had  a  great  deal  of  it  here  in  Boston.  Oh 
— I'm  quite  a  critic  now  ...  I  have  a  Symphony 
seat.  Isn't  it  absurd!  I  even  have  a  theory  about 
modern  music.  Do  you  remember  when  I  couldn't 
hum  a  tune? 

"I  have  been  thinking  of  those  old  days,  of 
Exeter,  and  of  our  freshman  year.  You're  lucky 
to  be  a  musician,  David.  There's  a  lot  I'd  want 
to  write,  if  I  could.  I'd  write  an  American  sym 
phony,  first,  and  you'd  be  the  hero  of  it,  but  I'd 
keep  you  here  in  America  and  give  you  an  awfully 
hard  time  and  doubt  and  bewilderment  and  dis 
couragement  and  then — Yoicks!  a  really  tremen 
dous  ending,  every  instrument  working  like  mad, 
the  conductor  waving  up  and  down  and  jumping 
around,  and  the  drums  banging  away  for  dear 
life. 

"  You  never  knew  Harvard,  but  you  would  have, 
if  you  had  stayed.  The  real  Harvard  means  Bad- 
cliffe.  I  would  have  laughed  at  that  once.  It 
means  Radcliffe,  and  Belmont  and  Waverly — 
Brattle  Street,  the  tea  houses — the  Charles  in 
winter — skating — Boston,  the  shops  along  Boyls- 
ton  Street — the  Symphony — oh,  a  host  of  things 
that  you  and  I  never  dreamed  of. 

"  Write  to  me  of  your  garret  in  Paris.  ...  It 
must  be  wonderful." 

Joan,  under  orders  to  deal  lightly  with  her  work, 
turned  fairly  helplessly  to  Peter,  with  the  result 
that  few  days  went  by  in  which  they  were  not  to 
gether  some  part  of  the  time.  She  had  given  up 


182  PETER    KINDRED 

her  dramatic  work  entirely.  She  said  there  was 
too  much  else  to  do  and  to  think  about;  that  ex 
planation  she  offered  Helen,  and  for  a  while 
Helen,  realizing  better  than  Joan  how  little  it  was 
true,  was  angry  and  worried.  But  after  Helen 
and  Don  had  talked  the  matter  over  at  lunch,  she 
began  to  think  seriously  about  it,  albeit  with  a 
twinkle  in  her  eyes,  and  made  a  particular  point 
of  discussing  Peter  whenever  Joan  would,  and 
that  was  often,  and  tried  to  meet  Peter,  too,  and 
to  talk  to  him.  Don  was  sarcastic ;  but  Helen  was 
faintly  thrilled. 

In  March  it  was  still  winter  in  New  England, 
the  brown  earth  lost  beneath  ice,  as  though  it 
never  would  be  otherwise;  Peter  and  Joan,  red- 
cheeked,  muffled  and  bundled  and  snowy.  Don 
and  Helen  sat  indoors  and  studied  in  their  various 
rooms,  or  met  at  lunch,  but  Peter  and  Joan  pre 
ferred  to  be  out  of  doors  if  they  could;  they  had 
talked  a  great  deal  together,  about  all  manner  of 
things,  and  it  was  pleasant  just  to  be  with  each 
other  in  Cambridge  and  in  Boston  again.  It  was 
good  to  be  side  by  side,  without  talk,  in  a  wind, 
arm  in  arm  over  slippery  places.  It  was  better 
than  to  be  sitting  always  opposite  each  other,  in 
a  corner,  talking  and  arguing. 

Then,  at  the  end  of  March,  Tod  und  Verklarung 
was  announced  in  a  Symphony  program,  and 
Helen  proceeded  happily  to  make  an  event  of  it. 
It  was  to  explain  a  great  many  things  in  music 
that  she  had  been  unable  to  make  clear,  to  fill, 


PETER   KINDRED  183 

somehow,  an  empty  place  in  Don's  enthusiasm. 
She  went  over  it  carefully  in  advance;  she  was 
anxious  for  Don  to  enjoy  it  thoroughly,  and  was 
prepared  to  be  intensely  disappointed  if  he  did 
not.  Peter,  catching  a  flash  of  her  enthusiasm, 
felt  as  though  something  were  to  happen,  almost 
as  he  had  used  to  feel  before  a  big  game.  But 
Joan,  in  turn,  was  slyly  amused  at  Helen.  She 
had  a  mind  to  talk  to  Peter  about  it,  and  laugh 
with  him  at  Helen's  anxiety  for  Don,  and  yet,  for 
a  reason  inexplicable  to  herself,  she  hesitated,  and 
thought  better  of  it.  She  was  not  accustomed  to 
demureness  in  herself;  it  puzzled  her.  But  she 
knew,  nevertheless,  that  if  she  made  a  mock  of 
Helen's  affection  for  Don  before  Peter,  she  would 
not  be  able  to  hold  her  face  up  to  him  while  she 
mocked.  It  half  vexed  her  to  feel  so ;  but  it  was 
half  pleasant,  too. 

On  the  night  of  the  concert,  winter  broke  slug 
gishly,  and  a  wind  that  was  not  a  winter  wind 
blew  steadily  out'  of  the  west.  In  it  there  was  a 
hint  of  brown,  wet  earth  again.  The  two  men  rode 
in  to  Boston,  a  feeling  of  adventure  stirring  in 
Peter's  body.  Don  had  little  to  say;  his  thoughts 
were  not  upon  music,  but  at  his  desk,  where  his 
work  was  piled  high,  and  among  his  neat  notes. 
He  did  not  remember  a  tithe  of  what  Helen  had 
said;  even  then  he  had  listened  to  her  absently, 
wondering  while  she  spoke  of  music,  how  best  to 
undertake  his  own  problems  of  study,  and  settle 
them  before  spring.  Don  and  Peter  entered  the 


184  PETER    KINDRED 

hall  without  comment,  and  took  their  seats  to 
gether. 

The  symphonic  poem  was  played  last  of  all; 
after  it  was  over,  the  two  men  went  silently  with 
the  crowd  out  of  the  hall.  Helen  was  sleeping 
with  Joan  in  Boston  that  night.  They  waved  to 
Don  from  a  lighted  motor,  and  were  gone.  Peter 
had  not  seen  them.  Under  the  lamp-light  people 
crowded  against  him  and  eddied  past;  motors 
drew  up  at  the  curb ;  there  was  noise  and  hurry 
ing.  Peter  hardly  heard  it.  He  was  aware  of  the 
wide  street,  and  the  night,  and  insistent  move 
ment.  Don  took  his  arm  and  they  walked  slowly 
up  Massachusetts.  An  acquaintance  called  to 
them  from  his  motor;  it  came  throbbing  up  be 
side  them,  and  they  clambered  into  the  back  seat. 
There  they  were  isolated,  quiet.  The  motor  sped 
smoothly  forward  toward  the  bridge,  and  the  wind 
rushed  into  their  faces. 

On  the  bridge  they  came  into  the  full  sweep  of 
the  night.  The  sky  was  bellied  with  stars  across 
the  zenith.  A  hollow  of  solemn  wind  was  above 
them;  the  river  below,  suddenly  gleaming,  and 
then  lost;  and  all  about  them  were  darkness  and 
the  twinkle  of  far-off  lights.  The  car  thrummed 
down  the  river  road,  gathering  speed  along  the 
unlighted  track,  its  lamps  flaring  on  ahead.  Across 
the  water  lay  Boston,  a  gray  of  thin  moonlight 
upon  roofs,  darkly  shadowed  with  streets.  It  was 
a  night  when  the  sea  comes  close,  when  cities  steal 
insensibly  together,  when  men  are  not  lonely  and 


PETER   KINDRED  185 

strange  to  one  another  any  more,  but  live  and 
love  together ;  their  pulses  beating  bravely  a  fine 
tattoo  into  the  infinite  abyss.  Or  so  it  seemed. 
And  Peter,  throwing  back  his  head  at  last,  with 
the  full  power  of  his  lungs  sang  the  final  great 
sentence  of  the  symphony,  the  Verklarung,  rising 
tip,  up,  up  to  a  triumphant  insistence  of  faith,  dis 
covered  and  determined. 

That  night,  for  the  first  time,  Peter  dreamed  of 
Joan.  They  were  in  Switzerland  somehow ;  there 
was  a  cottage;  Joan  was  kneeling  before  a  tiny 
fire  of  faggots.  And  then  they  were  in  Cambridge 
again,  and  he  was  losing  Joan.  Inarticulate,  mis 
erable,  he  pleaded  with  her.  She  did  not  go, 
and  he  kissed  her.  He  woke  up  in  love  with 
her. 

It  was  an  awakening  more  strange  than  any  he 
had  ever  known.  He  was  suddenly  wide  awake; 
bed  was  intolerable.  He  was  full  of  some  wild 
and  startled  energy  that  struggled  in  him  to  be 
let  loose,  but  he  did  not  kno\7  how  to  loose  it.  He 
wanted  to  sing,  a  torrent  of  notes,  without  mean 
ing.  He  moved  slowly,  as  though  his  movements 
were  delicious  and  incomprehensible;  he  sat  for 
long  spaces  of  time  staring  at  the  wall,  at  his  desk, 
at  the  cover  of  a  book,  attentive,  as  though  listen 
ing  for  something. 

His  heart  weighed  nothing,  but  it  took  up  the 
entire  space  of  his  breast.  He  could  plainly  hear 
its  beating.  He  wanted  to  cry  out  to  someone  that 


186  PETER    KINDRED 

some  marvelous  thing  had  occurred  to  him.  Fi 
nally  he  stood  before  his  window,  looking  down  at 
Holyoke  in  the  early  morning  sun,  glowing  through 
the  pane  of  glass  onto  his  face.  He  stretched  his 
arms  wide  above  his  head  and  laughed  deeply, 
from  the  very  bottom  of  his  being. 

"Lord!"  he  cried,  "Lord!"  And  then  sud 
denly  he  grew  sober  and  thoughtful,  and  a  rush 
of  tenderness  overwhelmed  him. 

There  was  nothing  as  it  had  been  in  Cambridge. 
Everything  was  entirely  changed,  but  wherein,  he 
could  not  say.  Overnight  it  had  taken  to  itself 
whatever  of  glory  Venice  may  have  had,  or  Flor 
ence,  or  Home,  or  Paris.  There  were  no  other 
cities  but  Cambridge.  There  were  names,  unin 
habited,  somewhere  north  and  south  and  west. 
New  York  was  one  of  them.  Skeletons  lived  there 
.  .  .  what  old,  old  skeletons! 

The  sight  of  Don  at  breakfast  sobered  him 
abruptly.  His  voice  trembled  as  he  greeted  him, 
and  he  made  a  great  business  of  eating  his  break 
fast,  lest  he  be  caught  in  talk.  It  would  have  been 
impossible  for  him  to  talk ;  there  would  have  been 
no  breath  for  his  voice.  He  smiled  almost  con 
tinually;  he  could  not  help  it. 

He  was  torn  between  the  desire  to  see  Joan  at 
once,  and  the  fear  of  seeing  her,  for  he  knew  that 
he  was  not  master  of  his  breath.  That  Joan  did 
not  love  him  was  a  matter  of  no  importance  to 
him.  Indeed,  he  would  have  been  amazed  and  hor 
rified  at  the  thought  of  himself  importunate  for 


PETER    KINDRED  187 

her  love;  the  remarkable  fact  to  Peter  was  that 
he  himself  was  in  love.  Like  some  whirlwind,  it 
had  swept  him  clear  of  everything,  all  talk 
and  argument,  all  experience,  and  it  filled  and 
drenched  every  nook  and  cranny  of  him.  That 
was  enough.  If  Joan  had  come  to  him  then  and 
offered  him  her  love,  I  think  it  would  have  wreaked 
havoc  with  him;  it  would  have  been  an  unfortu 
nate  thing;  he  would  not  have  known  how  to  ac 
cept  it. 

After  breakfast  Peter  went  back  to  his  room, 
up  Mount  Auburn  Street.  Winter  had,  indeed, 
broken;  the  wind  was  fresh  and  warm,  and  blew 
steadily.  At  his  feet  runnels  of  melted  ice  trickled 
into  the  gutter ;  between  the  blocks  of  paving  stone 
the  earth  was  soft  and  drenched  and  muddy. 
There  was  a  sunny  odor  of  wet  trees,  of  stirring 
earth,  the  sleepiness  and  drowsiness  of  slow  awak 
ening  orchards  over  all  New  England,  in  the  wind 
that  blew  so  brightly  in  his  face.  It  brought  him 
the  half  remembered  fragrance  of  roads  and  fields 
and  old  stone  walls  in  "Waverly,  from  Wellesley, 
from  Providence  and  Springfield,  far-lying  in  the 
sun,  blown  upon  by  that  same  wind.  He  stood  on 
his  doorstep  a  long  while  loath  to  go  indoors.  His 
room  was  warm  and  close ;  he  sat  at  his  desk,  and 
the  stretch  of  shining  sky  above  the  south,  over 
the  river  he  knew  must  be  sparkling  in  the  sun,  the 
wind  moving  there  across  the  clear  sky,  the  mur 
mur  of  water  dripping  and  splashing  from  the 
roofs,  all  called  him  out  again.  There  was  noth- 


188  PETER    KINDRED 

ing  to  do  in  his  room.  He  went  out,  to  walk  a  long 
way. 

As  he  walked,  the  ecstacy  of  his  spirit  died  away 
within  him,  insensibly  into  a  faint  depression, 
curiously  akin  to  an  old  sadness  he  had  known  in 
Exeter,  a  sadness  because  the  earth  was  beauti 
ful.  This,  too,  died  away,  and  he  grew  tranquil 
and  proud,  save  only  that  in  his  tranquility  was 
woven  a  fierce  longing  to  be  with  Joan  again,  and 
a  memory  of  the  dreamed  kiss.  He  wanted  to  go 
to  her  at  once,  and  yet  intuitively  he  knew  it  to  be 
impossible,  that  it  would  torment  him. 

There  was  not  much  time  left  him  before  the 
spring  holidays  ...  a  few  days.  He  thought  that 
he  would  give  himself  a  day  of  grace,  in  which  to 
consider  himself,  and  after  he  would  go  to 
Joan. 

It  was  a  luxury  to  think  she  was  fond  of  him, 
and  he  doled  it  out  to  himself  sparingly.  He  re 
membered  incidents  of  their  intimacy,  when  she 
had  whispered  to  him  some  quaint  confidence,  or 
when  she  had  smiled  at  him  in  frank  affection.  He 
was  a  boy  in  love;  it  was  as  though  his  life  had 
been  of  a  sudden  heroically  consecrated. 

He  turned  and  came  back  along  the  river.  It 
was  Sunday;  the  quiet  of  the  day  he  had  once  so 
disliked,  possessed  him.  A  single  church  bell 
tolled  faintly  and  far  off,  toward  Corey  Hill.  In 
his  own  spirit  was  the  sun,  the  steady  blowing  of 
the  wind,  the  fresh  lapping  of  water,  the  fragrance 
of  the  earth. 


PETER   KINDRED  189 

"No  one  told  me  it  would  be  this  sort  of  thing," 
he  said;  "no  one  at  all." 

That  night  he  sat  in  Don's  room,  talking  until 
very  late.  He  did  not  want  to  let  the  day  leave 
him,  to  go  to  bed  and  so  let  the  night  drift  off  into 
nothing.  He  talked  of  Helen  and  Joan,  of  Joan 
with  a  certain  hesitancy,  that  Don,  however,  did 
not  notice.  He  wanted  to  confess  his  love  to  Don, 
and  yet  he  wanted  to  hide  it  from  him.  He  felt 
diffident  before  Don,  young,  overcharged  with 
emotion.  So  he  sat  and  talked  generally  and  aim 
lessly.  He  had  no  stomach  for  a  discussion;  he 
wanted  only  to  be  awake,  talking  himself  to  sleepi 
ness.  He  tried  to  get  Don  to  talk  about  Helen. 

"She's  mighty  fine,"  Don  said.  "A  bit  emo 
tional."  It  was  his  only  criticism;  he  seemed  to 
be  more  interested  in  economics. 

Peter  went  into  his  own  room  finally,  and  so 
berly  undressed.  Once  in  bed,  he  fell  asleep  almost 
directly.  Late  the  next  morning,  the  telephone, 
ringing  in  the  empty  house,  awakened  him.  It 
was  Joan,  to  ask  him  if  they  might  have  lunch  to 
gether.  His  mind,  waking  from  heavy  sleep,  half 
forgot  that  he  was  in  love. 

To  see  Joan  again  puzzled  him.  She  sat  across 
the  table  from  him,  entirely  familiar,  and  yet  his 
thoughts  as  he  watched  her  were  tangled  and  con 
fused,  as  though  they  belonged  to  a  stranger. 
His  confidence  before  her  was  gone;  the  old 
thoughts  beat  against  a  strange  wave  of  humble- 


190  PETER    KINDRED 

ness,  and  sank  at  her  feet.  He  watched  the  effect 
on  her  of  whatever  he  said,  eagerly,  his  mind  con 
tinually  struggling  to  assert  itself  as  it  had  been 
accustomed  to  do,  his  spirit  timorous.  He  was 
as  nervous  as  a  child  who  knows  that  something  is 
expected  of  him  before  a  group  of  people,  and, 
alarmed,  he  tried  not  to  show  it.  But  when  at  last 
Joan  would  do  no  more  talking,  and  sat  watching 
him  soberly,  then,  despite  himself,  all  of  Peter 
Kindred  swept  up  into  his  eyes  and  glowed  there, 
half  pathetically.  He  smiled  as  though  he  had 
been  whipped,  and  Joan,  stirred  and  troubled, 
looked  away. 

It  was  their  last  meeting  before  Peter  went 
home,  and  after  it,  she  went  thoughtfully  to  her 
room,  and  shut  herself  in  there,  staring  quietly 
through  her  window  at  the  gaunt  trees  and  the 
dark  earth.  Helen  knocked  at  her  door,  and  she 
did  not  answer,  but  repented  of  it  afterward,  and 
went  at  last  into  Helen's  room  to  find  her  friend. 

"Helen,"  she  asked,  "have  you  ever  seen  a 
man  in  love?  "What  did  he  look  like?" 

Don  went  home  with  Peter  to  New  York,  and 
Peter  was  glad  of  that.  He  was  coming  home  dif 
ferently,  affectionately.  He  had  grown  suddenly 
toward  manhood;  he  had  been  touched  with  hu 
mility  and  with  humanity.  Yet  he  wanted  to  take 
with  him  his  life  in  Cambridge,  and  that  was  very 
nearly  Don.  He  felt  that  with  Don  beside  him  it 
would  be  easier  to  be  kindly,  and  so  it  turned  out, 


PETER    KINDRED  191 

for  there  was  a  certain  awkwardness  in  his  fa 
ther's  greeting,  that  would  have  approached  sul- 
lenness  if  it  had  not  been  so  mingled  with  curi 
osity  for  Peter's  guest.  Indeed,  Mr.  Kindred,  un 
like  his  wife,  had  neither  forgotten  nor  forgiven 
Peter  his  neglect.  Neither  he  nor  his  wife  under 
stood  at  all  the  manner  of  Peter's  development, 
but  when  the  older  man  called  his  son  ungrateful 
and  selfish,  the  mother  could  not  find  it  in  her 
heart  really  to  blame  Peter,  and  laid  her  unhap- 
piness  at  the  door  of  what  she  vaguely  considered 
a  misunderstanding  between  them.  He  was  her 
son.  So  Mrs.  Kindred  hugged  Peter  no  less  fondly 
upon  his  return,  and  if  she  watched  him  anxiously, 
it  was  from  eagerness  to  find  what  she,  with  pa 
tient  and  thoughtless  faith,  knew  would  some  day 
be  there,  the  expression  of  all  that  she  considered 
splendid  in  a  man. 

Edith,  upon  the  other  hand,  had  long  ago  for 
gotten  her  feud  with  Peter,  and  liked  him  for 
bringing  Don  home,  whom  she  legitimately  might 
enheroize.  For  that  matter,  the  whole  family 
made  something  of  a  hero  of  Don;  it  was  always 
their  first  reaction  toward  intelligent  strangers. 

Peter,  with  Don  there,  was  happy  to  be  home, 
and  that  was  soon  evident  to  his  family.  He  spent 
occasional  hours  gossiping  with  his  mother,  he 
discussed  business  with  his  father,  he  listened  to 
Edith's  talk  of  social  affairs.  He  was  no  longer 
at  odds  with  them;  he  felt  that  he  had  stepped 
out  of  their  group,  and  that  he  might  visit  them 


192  PETER    KINDRED 

almost  as  a  stranger  would,  courteously.  There 
was,  besides,  an  affection  for  them,  that,  unin 
hibited  by  any  struggle  to  get  away  from  them, 
made  it  pleasant  merely  to  be  with  them,  to  watch 
the  course  of  their  affairs,  to  take  an  impersonal 
interest  in  their  problems  which  were  no  longer 
by  any  possibility  his  problems.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  he  came  from  a  different  life,  on  leave  of  ab 
sence,  to  consider  simple  questions  of  a  lesser 
life. 

So  Peter  felt,  but  his  family  saw  only  his  cour 
tesy,  and  felt  only  his  kindness.  To  them  it  was 
quite  as  though  the  boy  of  days  before  Exeter 
had  grown  up  as  they  would  have  wished  him, 
father  and  mother  fearing — a  bit  more  poetic,  per 
haps,  and  impractical.  It  brought  a  sort  of 
pompous  satisfaction  to  the  father,  as  though, 
somehow,  he  had  been  responsible  for  it,  and  to 
the  mother  the  quiet  happiness  of  justification. 
In  turn  it  pleased  Peter  greatly  that  his  parents 
were  satisfied,  and  caused  him  to  feel  lordly  and 
potent,  at  his  easy  ability  to  create  such  harmony. 
Looking  back  upon  the  troubledness  of  the  past 
years,  he  was  inclined  to  blame  himself  severely 
for  that  trouble,  and  for  the  lack  of  what  he  called 
a  sense  of  humor.  He  thought  that  he  had  ac 
quired  a  sense  of  humor,  and  attributed  his  gen 
tleness  to  that.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Peter  never 
did  acquire  a  sense  of  humor,  all  his  life  long. 

Unlike  the  occasion  of  Frank's  visit  once  be 
fore,  Peter  felt  no  shame  in  his  family  or  in  his 


PETER    KINDRED  193 

home.  Don  would  understand ;  there  was  no  apol 
ogy  needed.  These  were  natural  people;  such 
homes  were  many,  and  necessary  and  important. 
He  no  longer  felt  that  a  criticism  of  his  family 
was  also  a  criticism  of  him;  there  was  growing 
in  him  what  was  later  to  be  a  pride  in  the  humble 
ness  of  his  beginnings.  Translated,  perhaps  his 
thoughts  at  that  time  would  have  been :  I  am  born 
to  greater  things.  Lo,  my  birthplace,  and  my  fam 
ily,  my  earliest  environment,  my  origin! 

Nor  was  he  restless  in  the  small  flat,  for  in  Don, 
there  was  something  of  Cambridge,  its  quiet,  its 
distances — all  of  it,  indeed,  excepting  Joan. 

But  Joan  was  constantly  in  his  mind,  a  serene 
presence.  He  tried  not  to  talk  of  her,  but  he  could 
not  help  it,  he  must  needs  describe  her  to  his 
mother,  but  casually,  very  casually.  Mrs.  Kin 
dred's  heart  warmed  as  he  talked,  that  he  should 
be  confiding  in  her;  it  was  quite  happily  correct, 
and  was  included  in  the  whole  duty  of  a  son.  She 
had  always  expected  to  be  confided  in,  ultimately. 
As  for  Peter,  it  was  a  joy  merely  to  say  aloud  to 
some  one  of  Joan  that  her  eyes  were  so  and  so, 
and  her  hair  so  and  so,  and  to  make  light  of  their 
friendship  while  his  full  heart  mocked  at  him,  his 
full  heart  and  his  mother,  too,  for  since  she  wanted 
to  be  confided  in,  she  would  not  have  Joan  any 
thing  less  than  her  son's  love — as  she  would  have 
said,  his  sweetheart.  How  he  would  have  hated 
her  if  she  had  really  said  the  word  aloud ! 

In  the  intimacy  of  their  life  together  in  New 


194  PETER    KINDRED 

York,  Peter  could  not  keep  his  secret  longer  from 
Don,  and  confessed  his  love  for  Joan  at  last,  in 
the  close  darkness  of  the  bedroom  they  shared  to 
gether.  When  he  had  spoken  he  lay  still  and 
held  his  breath,  waiting  for  a  pealing  organ  to 
fill  the  darkness  with  music,  waiting  for  some  great 
thing  to  happen ;  but  in  his  heart  he  doubted  that 
there  would  be  even  a  fitting  solemnity  in  Don's 
reply,  and  as  the  silence  grew  and  Don  made  no 
stir,  he  was  sorrier  and  sorrier  that  he  had  spoken 
and  felt  younger  and  younger  with  each  succes 
sive  moment.  Finally  he  gulped. 

"Don!"  he  ventured,  with  a  laugh  he  hoped 
was  light. 

Don  moved  slowly  in  his  bed. 

"Akh!"he  said. 

But  in  the  morning,  on  their  way  to  the  dining 
room,  he  put  his  arm  lightly  over  Peter's  shoul 
der,  and  gave  him  a  pat,  and  during  breakfast 
Peter  saw  Don  looking  at  him  intently. 

It  was  Don  who  arranged  the  afternoon  with 
Helen,  a  play,  and  tea  afterward  at  the  Plaza. 
He  did  it  all  quietly  enough,  and  surprised  Peter 
with  the  whole  plan  arranged  and  completed,  the 
tickets  bought,  the  Plaza  selected  for  tea,  and  the 
day  of  the  affair  itself  only  a  night  away.  Peter 
was  astounded  and  overjoyed,  and  all  the  more  so 
because  he  had  forgotten  that  Helen  lived  in 
New  York,  and  the  realization  of  it  was  amaz 
ing. 


PETER    KINDRED  195 

"Why,"  he  cried  to  Don,  "it'll  be  a  regular  old 
reunion!" 

How  was  it  that  he  had  not  even  thought  of  it 
before?  It  would  be  almost  like  seeing  Joan 
again. 

Yet  he  was  sobered  and  made  thoughtful  by  a 
faint  opposition  in  his  parents,  an  opposition  he 
felt  although  it  was  not  openly  expressed,  out  of 
politeness  to  their  guest.  In  his  father's  silence 
Peter  read  condemnation  of  such  extravagance, 
and  in  the  aggrieved  air  of  both  Edith  and  her 
mother  there  was  more  than  a  hint  that  Edith 
should  have  been  asked  to  go.  But  Peter  would 
rather  not  have  gone  at  all  than  have  taken  Edith. 

Since  Don  was  in  his  confidence,  even  though 
that  confidence  had  been  fairly  unfortunate,  the 
meeting  of  the  three  of  them  held  an  unusual 
charm  of  intimacy  to  Peter.  For  certainly,  Helen 
knew  of  whatever  fondness  Joan  had  for  him,  and 
even  though  he  knew  that  she  would  say  nothing 
about  it,  and  though  he  did  not  even  dream  to 
capture  the  slightest  hint,  the  unspoken  secret  be 
tween  them,  in  which  Don  shared,  endeared  Helen 
to  him.  And  there  was,  of  course,  a  flavor  of  Cam 
bridge  in  their  meeting  as  they  had  so  often  done, 
a  flavor  of  Cambridge,  of  pleasant  and  familiar 
things  in  unfamiliar  surroundings.  When  they 
saw  each  other  in  the  lobby  of  the  theater,  Helen's 
evident  delight  at  being  with  them  again  warmed 
the  cockles  of  his  heart. 

Don  was  justly  bored  with  the  play,  but  Peter 


196  PETER    KINDRED 

was  in  no  mood  to  be  bored  with  anything. 
There  was  a  sweetened  love  scene  that  he  en 
joyed  tremendously,  as  he  had  enjoyed  such 
things  in  the  picture  theaters  a  year  before; 
one  half-guilty  glance  at  Helen  by  his  side  com 
forted  him,  for  she  was  evidently  as  emotionally 
flushed  at  it  as  he.  Beyond  her,  Don  brooded  sar 
castically;  the  hero  on  the  stage  registered  the 
deepest  agony  at  an  unexpected  misfortune  to  his 
passion,  and  Peter  let  his  thoughts  sweep  out  of 
New  York  in  a  wide,  swift  arc,  and  land  sweetly 
in  Boston.  After  the  last  curtain  he  followed  Don 
slowly  along  the  crowded  aisle,  feeling  the  evening 
chill  reaching  in  from  the  opened  doors;  to  Don's 
grumbles  he  said  nothing  at  all.  Don  was  right, 
quite  right,  but  Peter  had  had  a  very  pleasant 
time,  nevertheless. 

The  three  friends  walked  home  arm  in  arm 
across  the  park  through  the  damp  April  evening. 
Don's  thoughts  were  bent  bitterly  upon  govern 
ment  and  people;  Peter  was  thinking  happily  of 
Joan,  and  Helen  was,  too. 

But  the  home-coming  was  not  to  be  entirely 
without  unpleasantness.  That  night  Edith  went 
to  a  dance,  and  the  following  day  she  was  impor 
tant  with  society  matters.  The  most  pressing  of 
these  she  imparted  at  luncheon;  the  daughter  of 
a  wealthy  manufacturer  of  ribbons  had  been  heard 
to  observe  that  anyone  at  that  dance  was  certainly 
declasse,  that  it  was  a  distressingly  bourgeois  af 
fair.  This  effectively  had  damned  the  evening, 


PETER   KINDRED  197 

but  Peter,  ascertaining  that  the  daughter  of  the 
ribbon  king  had  herself  hugely  enjoyed  the  danc 
ing  and  the  chicken  salad,  became  impetuously  dis 
gusted. 

"The  dirty  little  brat!"  he  cried.  He  would 
have  said  more,  but  that  Don  sat  opposite  him, 
smiling  quietly.  Don's  amusement  made  Peter 
ashamed,  but  Peter's  outburst  had  stirred  the 
family  to  a  faint  sense  of  discord  again.  It  was 
not  that  they  disagreed  with  Peter  wholly  in  his 
opinion  of  that  beribboned  arbiter  of  society,  but 
that  they  entirely  objected  to  hearing  anyone  de 
scribed  as  a  dirty  brat,  particularly  a  young  lady 
who  could  trace  her  family  back  for  two  genera 
tions,  whose  father  was  an  extremely  able  busi 
ness  man;  a  young  lady,  besides,  who  stood  for 
something  definite  in  society,  and  always  looked 
quite  clean.  It  moved  them  to  a  sudden  doubt  if 
Peter  was  after  all  so  much  the  creature  they 
had  hoped  he  would  be. 

The  day  before  college  opened  there  was  a  let 
ter  on  his  plate  at  breakfast ;  he  knew  at  once  that 
it  was  from  Joan.  Thrills  made  tremulous  his 
stomach ;  breakfast  was  intolerably  long;  he  bolted 
his  coffee,  and  went  into  his  own  room.  It  was  a 
short  note,  but  Joan's  signature  at  the  end  held 
him  entirely  in  thrall.  He  read  the  letter  twice; 
there  was  just  a  bit  of  news  of  Boston,  and  a  naive 
wish  to  see  him  again,  and  then  her  name,  Joan. 
He  was  staring  at  it  when  Don  came  in,  and  laid 
a  heavy  hand  on  his  shoulder. 


198  PETER    KINDRED 

"Well,  old  one,"  he  said,  "tell  me  about  it." 

Peter  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "What  is  there 
to  tell?"  he  asked. 

"How  did  it  happen!"  Don  asked. 

"  I  woke  up  with  it. " 

"Splendid  .  .  .  after  a  dream?" 

"Yes." 

"And  then  you  thought  you  were  in  love? " 

Peter  objected  to  Don's  use  of  the  word  thought. 

"Well,"  Don  said,  "you  woke  up  in  love." 

"Yes." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  'in  love'?' 

Peter  pondered  over  the  question.  "I  don't 
know,"  he  said  finally.  "I  can't  reduce  it  to  any 
thing  logical.  She  simply  swept  right  through  all 
of  me." 

"Peter,"  Don  said  gravely,  "didn't  I  hear  you 
make  mince  meat  of  just  such  illogical  love  a  while 
ago?" 

"This  isn't  romantic  love,  Don,"  Peter  said 
very  earnestly.  *  '  Anything  but  that. ' ' 

"Ah.  You  mean  then  that  after  your  dream 
you  woke  up  and  realized  that  Joan  would  make 
an  excellent  mother,  and  a  sensible  wife.  The  sort 
of  woman  you  wanted. ' ' 

i  l  Hmm  .  .  .  Oh,  I  knew  all  that  before.  I  woke 
up  and  .  .  .  well,  I  was  in  love." 

Don  smiled  faintly.    "And  Joan?" 

Peter  shook  his  head.  "I  have  no  idea,"  he 
said;  "what  do  you  think?" 

"I?    Nothing,  Peter,  nothing  at  all.    I  have  no 


PETER   KINDRED  199 

idea,  really.    I  imagine  that  she's  fond  of  you." 

Peter  could  not  help  smiling  at  that,  half 
pleased. 

"I  sha'n't  argue  with  you  about  love,"  Don 
went  on.  "Yon  know  what  I  think  of  it.  I  think 
it's  darn  foolishness  .  .  .  but  Joan  is  fine,  and 
you  could  hardly  do  better.  What  do  you  plan  ? ' ' 

"Glory — I  have  no  plan!  Why,  Joan  isn't  in 
love  with  me." 

Don  shook  his  head  impatiently.  "Fiddle,"  he 
exclaimed.  "You  sentimental  child.  Do  you  ex 
pect  her  to  wake  up,  too,  some  morning  and  clutch 
at  her  heart  and  sing  out,  Heavens,  I'm  in  love? 
She'll  marry  because  she  knows  that  the  particu 
lar  man  she's  marrying  is  the  best  chap  for  her." 

Inwardly  Peter  writhed  at  that ;  it  was  a  fear 
fully  Carverian  thing  to  say,  and  he  hated  and 
feared  the  possibility  of  it,  for  he  knew  that  Joan 
would  never  choose  him,  and  that  unless  she  did 
miraculously  awake  some  morning  as  Don  doubted 
she  ever  would,  and  find  herself  in  love,  his  would 
be  a  hopeless  affair.  Don  went  on  thoughtfully. 

"There's  no  reason  why  your  parents  and  hers 
shouldn  't  help  you  to  get  started,  you  know. ' ' 

"Yes,  they  ought  to  help.  But  I  don't  think 
they  would.  I  know  that  mine  wouldn't,  at  any 
rate." 

There  was  a  moment's  silence,  and  then  Peter 
spoke  timidly. 

"Do  you  know,  Don,"  he  said,  "it's  kind  of  darn 
wonderful  to  be  in  love. ' ' 


200  PETER    KINDRED 

"For  God's  sake,  Peter,"  Don  cried,  "don't  be 
a  fool!" 

Mrs.  Kindred  kissed  her  son  good-bye  more 
fondly  than  she  had  been  accustomed  to,  but  not 
quite  as  fondly  as  she  had  hoped  to,  distracted  at 
the  last  moment  by  the  thought  of  the  ribbon 
king's  daughter.  His  father  shook  hands  with 
him  genially,  and  gave  him  a  timid  pat  on  the 
cheek.  Edith  vaguely  allowed  herself  to  be  kissed 
and  hoped  archly  enough  that  Don  would  find  time 
to  write  to  her  some  day.  The  two  went  into  the 
damp  and  acrid  apartment  hallway,  down  the  iron- 
trellised  elevator,  along  the  low  street,  and  into 
the  gnomelike  tunnel  of  the  subway. 

The  high  dome  of  the  Gcand  Central  was  mur 
murous  with  unrest,  with  travel  and  adventure. 
Bed-capped  negro  porters  loitered  in  groups,  or 
carried  bags  across  the  marble  floor  to  the  wait 
ing  gates  of  trains.  There  were  preludings  of 
Harvard,  the  silver  ripple  of  a  coon-skin  coat,  un 
mistakable  undergraduates.  Out  of  the  streets  of 
New  York,  the  great  station  was  spacious  with 
distance  of  many  cities.  The  two  men  went 
through  the  Boston  gate,  and  into  the  close,  warm, 
and  yellow-lighted  car. 

Next  morning  the  train  burrowed  into  the  sta 
tion  at  Back  Bay,  and  Don  and  Peter  came  out 
and  sunned  themselves. 

To  Peter  there  was  too  large  a  hint  of  happi 
ness  in  this  last  return  to  Cambridge,  and  this  first 


PETER   KINDRED  201 

return  to  Joan,  to  permit  the  usual  haste  in  com 
ing  back  to  the  house  on  Holyoke.  He  wanted  to 
taste  it,  to  go  about  it  at  leisure.  Besides,  he 
wanted  to  feel  himself  for  a  while  in  Boston, 
Joan's  city,  before  he  came  to  Cambridge  again. 
So  he  and  Don  ate  their  breakfast  in  the  sunny 
breakfast  room  of  the  Copely,  among  the  perfumes 
of  flowers  and  women,  and  the  good  brown  odor 
of  coffee,  and  Peter  felt  like  singing. 

While  they  had  been  gone,  April  rain  had 
cashed  Cambridge,  and  April  sun  had  warmed 
the  trees.  There  were  no  more  icy  places,  no  more 
frozen  spots  of  bare  earth.  The  gaunt  outlines 
had  faded,  the  angles  had  rounded,  had  softened, 
had  melted  in  the  rain.  The  grass  was  faintly 
green;  there  was  an  odor  of  trees.  It  was  like 
coming  into  the  country.  Only  the  shadows  were 
still  chill  and  unwarmed. 

Peter  wasted  time,  consciously.  He  was  im 
patient  to  see  Joan,  and  he  put  off  seeing  her  as 
one  puts  off  the  pleasantly  jellied  portion  of  a 
cake  at  tea,  for  the  last  bite.  He  nibbled  at  his 
cake,  doing  a  hundred  odd  things,  unpacking,  ar 
ranging  his  books,  and  his  clothes,  registering, 
attending  classes.  Then  after  lunch  he  telephoned 
to  her,  fearful  that  some  anti-climax  would  occur 
to  spoil  things ;  but  there  was  none ;  her  fresh  voice 
answered  him,  and  asked  him  to  dine  with  her  that 
night  in  Boston  at  her  home.  She  seemed  uncom 
monly  glad  to  hear  him  again,  and  his  pulses  beat 
away  at  a  great  rate.  But  at  the  thought  of  din- 


202  PETER    KINDRED 

ing  with  her  in  Boston  before  her  mother  and 
father,  he  felt  oppressed.  When  he  told  Don  about 
it,  Don  offered  him  advice. 

" There  is  only  one  way  to  tell  a  man's  breed 
ing  and  that  is  by  watching  him  eat.  Long  gen 
erations  of  don'ts  at  table  make  the  gentleman; 
it  can't  be  imitated  or  aped.  Handle  yourself, 
creature." 

That  night  he  dressed  himself  with  great  care, 
and  went  into  Boston  with  a  beating  heart.  He 
could  not  help  but  think  that  Joan 's  parents  would 
see  to  the  bottom  of  his  manners  at  once,  discover 

his  love  for  their  daughter,  and  .  .  .  and He 

did  not  know  what  they  would  do  then,  but  it  would 
be  terrible  and  mortifying. 

However,  they  seemed  to  take  his  manners  for 
granted,  and  were  affable  and  kind.  They  em 
ployed  no  butler ;  he  felt  better  for  that,  and  after 
Joan's  mother  had  shaken  him  warmly  by  the 
hand,  and  Joan's  father  had  made  a  little  joke 
about  Harvard,  he  felt  at  home  there,  and  happy. 
They  were  quiet  people,  thoughtful,  with  a  hint  of 
grim  humor  in  their  manner.  Their  family  had 
lived  for  many  generations  in  New  England. 

When  Peter  was  unbuttoning  his  coat  in  the 
hall,  before  his  name  had  been  announced,  Joan 
came  flying  down  the  stairs  to  him.  He  had  never 
seen  her  in  an  evening  gown;  he  had  never  im 
agined  that  she  would  be  so  lovely,  and  he  wished 
that  Don  could  see  her.  He  wanted  to  hold  out 
his  arms  to  her  as  she  came  so  swiftly  and  lightly, 


PETER    KINDRED  203 

and  then  to  kiss  very  tenderly  the  slim  hand  she 
held  ont  so  gladly  to  him.  But  he  was. almost 
horrified  at  the  thought  of  it.  He  could  do  no 
more  than  press  her  hand  clumsily  and  hard,  and 
feel  what  might  have  been  the  ghost  of  a  lump  in 
his  throat  at  the  sound  of  her  greeting. 

Dinner  was  more  pleasant  than  he  had  dared 
hope ;  merrier ;  and  well  worded,  too.  There  were 
several  discussions,  political  and  economic,  in 
which  Joan  spoke,  while  her  family  listened  to 
what  she  had  to  say,  and  answered  her  carefully. 
Peter  contrasted  these  parents  to  his  own,  and 
understood  Joan  the  better  for  it.  Indeed,  at  first 
he  grew  embarrassed  to  find  so  much  weight  at 
tached  to  what  he  himself  said,  and  became  con 
fused,  but  he  liked  it  all,  very  much.  He  could 
not  keep  his  eyes  from  Joan,  the  sweep  of  hair 
about  her  temples,  the  delicate  grace  of  her  neck 
and  shoulders,  the  movements  of  her  hands,  and 
when  her  eyes  met  his,  he  smiled,  but  once  when 
she  looked  at  him  for  a  long  moment  he  colored 
and  turned  away.  The  knowledge  that  he  must  be 
silent  before  the  very  real  hurt  of  his  love,  made 
him  miserable. 

Supper  came  to  an  end,  coffee  was  sipped,  talk 
drifted  idly,  and  they  went  upstairs.  On  a  win 
dow  seat  half  way  up,  Joan  stopped  and  curled 
herself  into  a  corner,  deep  in  cushions,  in  shadow. 
The  parents  left  them,  and  Peter  stood  before 
Joan  and  looked  at  her,  fingering  the  leather  chain 
of  his  watch.  The  stairs  wound  up  beyond  them* 


204  PETER    KINDRED 

and  fell  away  below  them  in  a  sweeping  curve; 
they  were  both  silent. 

"Sit  down,  Peter,"  Joan  said,  "and  tell  me 
about  yourself." 

There  was  too  much  to  tell ;  he  could  say  noth 
ing;  words  crowded  to  his  tongue,  but  they 
were  all  Joans.  For  a  hot,  adventurous  instant 
the  phrase  I  love  you  flamed  through  his  mind 
and  came  perilously  close  to  his  lips,  but  he  shut 
his  teeth  on  it  in  horror  again.  It  would  be  an  un 
forgivable  thing  to  say,  and  it  would  go  answer- 
less.  He  looked  at  Joan  helplessly,  and  her  eyes 
held  his  solemnly,  until  he  sat  down  finally,  and, 
drawing  his  ankle  under  him,  swung  the  free  leg 
up  and  down,  idly,  above  the  stairs.  Joan  sank 
deeper  into  the  cushions,  and  her  hands  stirred 
about  her  throat  and  hair.  Peter  was  seized  with 
a  feeling  of  weakness ;  he  wanted  to  capture  those 
hands  and  bury  his  face  in  them. 

"Peter,"  Joan  said,  "why  don't  you  say  some 
thing?" 

Peter  gulped  and  took  a  breath.  "There  isn't 
much  to  say,  Joan,"  he  said.  "I  .  .  ."  He  got 
no  further,  but  played  nervously  with  his  chain, 
and  watched  his  leg  swinging. 

"Tell  me  about  your  vacation." 

"Oh — it  was  very  nice — Don  was  with  me,  you 
know.  We  went  on  a  party  with  Helen  .  .  .  other 
wise  we  didn't  do  much." 

"I  know.  Helen  wrote  me  all  about  it.  She 
said  that  Don  grumbled  so." 


PETER   KINDRED  205 

Her  voice,  through  the  semi-darkness  of  the 
window  seat,  faltered  ever  so  slightly,  as  though 
she,  too,  fonnd  it  no  easy  matter  to  talk.  She 
laughed  a  little." 

' 'Did  yon  miss  .  .  .  Cambridge,  Peter!"  she 
asked. 

Again  words  rushed  tumultuously  to  his  mind. 
He  chose  them  with  a  fast-beating  heart  and  a 
sense  of  disaster. 

"Yes,  awfully  .  .  .  and  I  missed  you,  too." 
His  voice  trailed  to  a  whispered  laugh;  he  could 
hear  his  blood  throbbing  through  his  body.  He 
sat  erect. 

"And  you,  Joan?" 

"I  have  been  working  a  little  .  .  .  and  .  .  . 
thinking."  He  heard  her  voice  tremble  at  the 
last  word. 

"Joan,"  he  said  abruptly,  and  then  was  still. 
No  words  would  come.  From  the  other  end  of 
the  window  seat  there  was  a  sharp-drawn  breath, 
as  though  Joan  were  making  a  high  resolve,  that 
needed  courage.  Her  voice  reached  him  thinly, 
like  a  far-off  flute. 

"Peter,  "it  said.    "Tell  me.    Are  you  in  love!  " 

The  blood  sprang  back  to  Peter's  heart,  and 
held  its  motion  for  a  long  second.  His  mouth  was 
dry;  his  body  held  in  the  grip  of  disaster,  huge, 
gray,  utterly  still.  There  was  no  breath  drawn 
in  all  the  world,  no  sound  save  the  heavy  beat  of 
quietness.  He  could  not  speak;  his  head  nodded, 
dumbly.  From  her  corner  Joan  sat  erect,  facing 


206  PETER    KINDRED 

him,  snow  pale,  with  wide,  dark  eyes,  her  clenched 
hand  at  her  throat. 

"With  whom,  Peter?"  she  whispered. 

For  a  moment  neither  one  moved.  In  Peter 
there  was  a  stirring,  a  growing,  a  rushing,  a 
miracle  that  welled  up  from  unfathomable  depths, 
that  swept  through  the  empty  corridors  of  his 
body,  that  leaped  at  last  to  his  mind,  into  his  eyes 
and  arms.  A  pouring  of  wild  energy  took  posses 
sion  of  him  and  struggled  with  unbelief  within 
him.  It  was  incredible,  it  was  untrue,  it  was  stark 
madness.  His  body  struggled  with  the  flood, 
tugged,  fought  for  its  moorings;  the  flood  swept 
over  him  and  bore  him  before  it.  Joan's  lips  quiv 
ered  and  she  put  out  a  slender  hand  toward  him; 
his  arms  went  out  to  her. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PETEE  turned  down  Holyoke  Street  and  ran  at 
top  speed.  It  seemed  almost  impossible  to 
hold  the  tremendous  bubble  of  news  he  had  for 
Don,  it  kept  growing  bigger  and  bigger  within 
him,  and  he  must  run  faster  and  faster  lest  it 
escape  him  and  he  suddenly  shout  it  to  the  nar 
row  street  before  he  had  entered  his  own  house. 
He  burst  through  the  door  and  leaped  up  the 
rickety  stairs;  Don  was  in  his  own  room,  bent 
over  his  desk,  a  lamp  turned  full  and  yellow  on 
the  book  outstretched  before  him,  a  green  shade 
low  over  his  eyes.  The  room,  save  for  that  single 
lamp,  was  in  shadow ;  Peter  stood  in  the  doorway, 
breathless  from  his  running. 

The  bubble  must  have  escaped  after  all,  for  at 
the  sight  of  Don,  Peter  felt  at  once  tired  and  im 
personal,  indeed,  almost  defiant.  He  came  slowly 
into  the  room;  he  had  no  wish  to  blurt  out  any 
thing,  but  he  was  important  with  his  news,  never 
theless. 

" Hello,"  he  said.  Don  stirred  wearily,  and 
207 


208  PETER    KINDRED 

looked  questioningly  at  Peter.  But  now  that 
Peter  might  tell  Don  what  he  pleased,  he  wanted 
to  postpone  it,  almost,  in  fact,  to  hide  it  for  a 
secret  as  a  miser  might.  He  sank  into  a  chair  and 
stared  at  Don. 

"Hmm,"  he  said.    "How's  everything?" 

Don  turned  moodily  to  his  desk  again,  and  then 
Peter  wanted  to  tell  him  at  once.  But  he  hardly 
knew  how. 

11  Guess  what,"  he  said. 

'  '  What?"  Don  answered  from  his  book. 

Peter  considered  silently.  Then,  "It's  hap 
pened,"  he  said.  Don  swung  swiftly  around  on 
him. 

"What's  happened?"  he  asked  in  amaze 
ment. 

"Joan's  in  love  with  me." 

Don  looked  at  him  without  saying  a  word. 
Then  he  shook  his  head,  and  swung  back  to  his 
desk,  and  looked  at  his  book,  but  after  a  moment 
he  rose  and  walked  over  to  Peter  and  touseled 
Peter's  hair. 

"Well,  old  one,"  he  said,  and  then,  "Good 
stuff." 

All  in  all,  the  entire  world  took  Don's  view  of 
the  matter,  and  Peter  was  the  only  excited  per 
son,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Helen,  and  she 
was  told  later.  But  certainly  the  streets  were  as 
greatly  interested  in  April,  the  houses  no  less  in 
tent  upon  their  own  affairs,  the  sun  no  warmer, 
the  wind  no  more  fragrant.  Yet  perhaps  the  wind 


PETER   KINDRED  209 

was  a  little  more  fragrant.  But  the  students  who 
passed  below  his  window,  or  who  went  by  him  in 
.the  Yard,  talking  and  laughing,  and  the  serious 
professors  upon  their  platforms  were  no  whit  im 
pressed,  and  saw  no  unusual  radiance  in  Peter 
whereby  they  might  know  that  he  was  beloved. 
And  Peter  was  confounded  above  all  by  the  quiet 
way  in  which  Joan  accepted  their  betrothal. 

They  met  at  lunch  the  next  day.  He  had  wak 
ened  in  the  early  yellow  and  gray  of  dawn,  and 
had  lain  there  in  his  bed,  his  mind  groping  through 
the  resurgent  miracle  of  the  night  before,  exultant 
to  believe,  yet  awed  and  doubtful.  Later  he  had 
dreamed  above  his  breakfast,  and  had  gone  to  his 
classes  with  eyes  that  were  bewildered  at  accus 
tomed  sights,  with  ears  that  heard  nothing  of  lec 
tures,  still  living  helplessly,  it  seemed,  over  and 
over  again  that  unbelievable  surrender.  He  won 
dered  how  Joan  had  met  the  day ;  he  wanted  to  be 
with  her,  and,  for  some  reason,  to  comfort  her. 
It  was  with  a  strange  terror  and  excitement  in  his 
body  that  he  turned  at  noon  to  the  Cock  Horse, 
knowing  that  Joan  would  be  there.  But  he  had 
not  expected  the  quiet  happiness  of  her  smile  as 
she  caught  sight  of  him,  or  the  shy,  eager  pressure 
of  her  hand.  Watching  her,  he  could  scarce  be 
lieve  what  had  befallen  him.  They  said  little  to 
each  other  across  the  table,  but  there  was  a  new 
note  for  Peter  in  Joan's  voice,  a  depth,  a  tender 
ness,  a  whisper  of  intimacy. 

"Dear,"  she  said  to  him,  "I  think  I  shall  tell 


210  PETER    KINDRED 

Helen  soon.  And  there  is  a  great  deal  of  thinking 
to  be  done." 

There  was,  indeed,  a  deal  of  thinking  to  be  done, 
and  it  was  like  Joan  to  consider  that  at  once,  and 
like  Peter  to  overlook  it.  For  one  thing,  there 
must  be  no  more  dallying  with  work;  they  must 
set  their  hearts  together  upon  graduation  in  June. 
And  for  another  thing,  there  were  their  various 
families.  Peter  had  not  thought  of  saying  any 
thing,  but  Joan  insisted  upon  that. 

"Peter,"  she  said,  "we're  not  playing,  are  we? 
Then  if  we're  not,  our  folks  ought  to  know  and 
help." 

But  Peter  was  worried.  "My  folks  won't  help, 
Joan,"  he  said.  "And  anyhow,  let's  wait  ...  I 
want  to  be  through  here,  and  working  ...  I  want 
to  be  independent  first.  Then  I  won't  feel  so  ... 
humble  about  it." 

Joan  smiled  and  shook  her  head.  "Peter, 
Peter,"  she  murmured. 

"You  see,"  Peter  went  on,  "it's  different  with 
you.  Your  people  would  listen  and  talk  it  over, 
and  come  to  some  decent  opinion.  But  my  father 
would  be  awfully  angry  at  me  without  thinking  a 
bit,  and  mother,  too,  because  I  have  nothing  at  all 
to  be  married  on,  not  even  a  job  anywhere  .  .  . 
and  I  wouldn  't  want  your  folks  to  help,  Joan,  hon 
estly  ...  it  would  make  me  feel  rotten." 

Joan  played  with  her  napkin  and  considered 
that.  She  looked  up  at  last  and  reached  her  hand 
across  the  table  to  Peter.  "Perhaps  you're  right, 


PETER   KINDRED  211 

Peter,"  she  said.  "We  must  be  independent,  of 
course,  because  if  we  weren't  we'd  have  no  place 
in  society;  we  wouldn't  be  worth  our  keep." 

"Not  only  that,  Joan,  but  I  want  to  meet  your 
parents  on  an  equal  footing.  I  don't  want  to  need 
their  blessing." 

It  was  decided  that  only  Don  and  Helen  should 
know  until  Peter,  at  least,  was  independent  to 
scraie  small  extent.  Peter  wanted  Joan's  family 
to  like  him  for  himself,  and  not  because  Joan  had 
chosen  him,  and  he  was  very  much  afraid  of  feel 
ing  boyish  before  them  and  helpless  and  impetu 
ous  if  he  should  ask  for  their  judgment  at  that 
time. 

At  Brattle  Square  they  met  Don,  and  the  three 
of  them  walked  back  again  to  the  river,  and  sat 
on  a  weather-worn  bench  under  a  tree,  with 
the  sun  high  and  warm  above  them,  and  the  grass 
at  their  feet  fresh  and  newly  green.  The  river 
beyond  rippled  and  shone  under  the  sun ;  an  eight- 
oared  shell  went  by,  oarlocks  clacking,  the  bare 
shoulders  of  the  men  dipping  and  rising  together 
to  the  coxswain's  harsh  monotone,  their  oars 
catching  the  sun,  flashing  yellow  under  the  wide 
blue  sky  that  rose  shining  and  tranquil  above  the 
level  fields  and  woods  and  far-off  roofs  toward 
Brighton.  A  wind  blew  in  the  faces  of  the  three 
friends,  redolent  and  cool,  stirring  the  sun  on 
their  cheeks. 

They  sat  there  for  a  long  while,  happily,  talk 
ing  very  little,  save  now  and  then  of  New  York, 


212  PETER    KINDRED 

of  Don  who  was  to  study  there  for  the  law,  and  of 
the  city  itself,  the  mighty  test,  the  awaited  oppor 
tunity.  The  descending  sun  slanted  more  fully 
in  their  eyes,  as  Don  left  them  at  last  to  ponder 
together  what  they  would  give  to  life.  For  they 
knew  already  what  life  would  give  to  them. 
The  next  day  Joan  told  Helen. 

April  blossomed  slowly  into  sure  green,  through 
cold  days  and  warm,  under  northern  skies,  cloud 
less  and  spacious  above  low,  distant  horizons, 
warming  Boston  with  the  heat  of  the  sun,  tapping 
with  rain  on  Peter's  window  panes,  gathering  the 
soft  odor  of  fields  and  orchards  and  earthy  roads 
to  drift  idly  through  Joan's  open  Windows.  The 
two  rooms  were  empty,  their  owners  tramping  to 
gether  about  the  countryside,  talking  an  afternoon 
into  evening  on  some  tumbled,  ivy-grown  stone 
wall,  adventuring  together  in  Boston,  dining  some 
times  with  Joan's  parents.  Don  and  Helen,  too, 
were  often  together,  but  to  find  the  four  of  them 
at  once  was  unusual,  for  Peter  and  Joan  wanted 
to  be  alone;  there  were  forever  so  many  things 
to  talk  about,  and  such  deep  and  sacred  silences 
to  keep. 

" Mother  likes  you,"  Joan  said  to  Peter,  "and 
father,  too,  I  think.  But  Peter,  I'm  afraid  that 
they're  a  little  bit  suspicious.  They  are  such  dear 
people!" 

"There's  not  much  longer,  Joan/'  Peter  said. 

He  had  made  up  his  mind  to  try  journalism, 


PETER   KINDRED  213 

for  he  had  no  knowledge  at  all  of  business  or  of 
any  profession  or  trade,  for  that  matter.  His 
ignorance  had  startled  him  at  first,  thrown  him 
almost  into  a  panic,  until  he  had  thought  of  the 
papers.  He  knew,  at  any  rate,  how  a  newspaper 
looked,  and  he  knew  that  he  could  write  as  well 
as  what  he  had  seen  written.  The  decision 
smoothed  his  way,  apparently;  Don  agreed  with 
him,  and  Helen  had  promised  him  an  introduc 
tion.  He  was  full  of  excitement,  exuberant  en 
ergy. 

' '  Glory, ' '  he  said, '  *  if  I  *m  taken,  it  will  be  fifteen 
a  week,  certainly  not  less  than  twelve.  Helen  said 
that  a  cub  usually  gets  that  much.  Jinks,  Joan, 
we  could  live  on  twenty." 

His  eyes  dreamed  of  a  tenement,  and  two  brave 
people  loving  and  working  there.  Joan  was  to 
study  stenography  over  the  summer;  it  would  be 
a  stepping-stone  to  all  manner  of  great  things  for 
her. 

His  life  moved  serenely  with  April,  with  morn 
ing  and  evening,  sun  and  rain.  He  remembered 
his  other  life  faintly,  dimly  through  a  dream.  The 
Peter  of  Exeter,  of  New  York,  of  Harvard  had 
lived  once ;  this  was  another  Peter  who  woke  each 
morning  to  a  world  made  up  only  of  himself  and 
Joan.  Cambridge  was  a  rhythm  to  hold  his  own 
days  as  they  interwove  with  those  of  Joan,  New 
York  a  vague  and  looming  splendor  ahead  of  him 
beyond  the  full  flowering  of  May,  college  only 
an  insistence  of  key  and  pitch.  Hours  slipped  in- 


214.  PETER    KINDRED 

sensibly  into  days,  one  indistinguishable  from 
another,  save  when  he  might  not  be  with  Joan. 
For  a  while  he  lost  track  of  time.  A  Peter  Kin 
dred  went  absently  to  classes,  jotted  down  notes, 
scribbled  letters  to  a  family  in  New  York,  an 
swered  questions,  bowed  to  acquaintances,  but  it 
was  not  he. 

Joan,  too,  was  tranced  with  the  soft  succession 
of  days.  If  Peter  were  not  with  her,  she  could 
think  of  nothing  but  what  she  must  tell  him  when 
they  met  again.  Study  was  impossible,  a  thing 
of  the  past.  When  at  times  she  grew  conscience 
stricken,  her  anxious  mind  could  not  whip  her  body 
to  its  will.  It  was  entirely  too  sweet  a  thing  to 
take  possession  of  the  spring,  all  the  full  happi 
ness  of  surrender  to  the  drowsiness,  stirred  as  it 
was  with  the  brimmed  joy  of  her  heart. 

But  there  were  moments  of  impatience  with  the 
slow  drift  of  days  that  followed  one  another  so 
gently,  the  hours  that  brought  them  so  very  slow 
ly  to  the  starting  point.  For  there  was  too  much 
ahead  for  them  to  accept  without  a  pang  the  un 
availing  and  ineffectual  happiness.  It  was  happi 
ness,  but  it  was  marking  time. 

" Peter,"  Joan  cried  more  than  once,  "if  it 
were  only  autumn  now,  and  I  were  coming  down 
to  you  ...  to  our  home,  Peter. " 

And  Peter  would  nod  gravely,  with  sombre  eyes, 
and  pat  Joan's  hand.  Yet  before  her,  Peter  felt 
himself  half  quixotic,  half  childish.  There  was  in 
the  level  gray  of  her  eyes,  the  sure  logic  of  her 


PETER   KINDRED  215 

thought,  the  prim  stress  of  her  voice  a  power 
that  held  him  silent  and  often  rebuked  his  en 
thusiasm,  and  yet  because  of  her  slim  body  and 
the  delicate  lines  of  her  face,  he  wanted  to  arm 
himself  with  knightly  weapons  and  go  staunchly 
ahead  of  her,  clearing  a  path  for  her  against  all 
manner  of  ogres.  However,  there  were  no 
ogres,  save  those  which  waited  for  him  in  New 
York,  and  for  all  his  impatience  and  his  valorous 
eagerness  to  be  at  grips  with  them,  he  could  not 
entirely  down  a  qualm  of  nervous  fear,  the  fear  of 
untried  arms  and  an  untested  courage.  But  the 
hint  of  such  a  thing  to  Joan  shocked  her. 

"Why,  Peter  dear,"  she  said,  "how  silly. 
There 's  work  to  be  done,  and  we  shall  find  it  ... 
work  for  both  of  us  ...  hard,  splendid  work. 
I'm  not  afraid.  I'll  love  it." 

"Of  course  it's  there,"  Peter  said,  "And  we'll 
find  it." 

"Won't  it  be  good  to  come  home  at  evening, 
Peter?" 

"And  to  find  you  there." 

"No  .  .  ,  I'll  be  working,  Peter.  I '11  be  coming 
home,  too." 

*  '  Yes.  But  I  '11  be  coming  home  last,  and  whistle 
a  very  private,  secret  whistle  to  you,  under  your 
window." 

"I'll  whistle  back,  Peter." 

"And  then  Don  and  Helen  will  come  all  of  a 
sudden  for  supper." 

"That  will  be  expensive." 


^ PETER    KINDRED 

"Then  the  next  night  we  can  dine  with  mother 
and  father." 

"I  don't  know,  dear.  I  don't  know  if  we  ought 
to,  very  often.  It  would  be  almost  playing  at 
being  independent,  wouldn't  it?  And  we  must 
really  strike  out,  for  ourselves,  and  make  our  own 
way.  Or  otherwise  .  .  ." 

They  were  both  silent.    Then  Joan  spoke  again. 

"I  wonder  if  we'll  come  back  to  Cambridge 
again  some  day,"  she  said  softly. 

"Of  course  we  will.  And  some  day  my 
son  .  .  ." 

"And  my  daughter  ..." 

Peter  said  nothing  for  a  moment.  Joan  laid 
a  soft  hand  over  his. 

"What  were  you  going  to  say,  Peter?" 

"I  hardly  know.  I  was  thinking  of  Harvard 
.  .  .  and  then  I  was  thinking  how  .  .  .  how  I  shall 
love  your  son,  Joan." 

She  was  quiet  and  then  said  gently,  "I  wanted 
to  talk  to  you  about  that,  Peter." 

Peter  caught  her  hand  to  his  lips,  but  while  he 
kissed  it,  he  laughed.  "Joan,"  he  said  awkward 
ly,  holding  her  hand  against  his  face,  "tell  me, — 
may  I  give  a  party  when  you're  .  .  .  when  we're 
going  to  have  a  baby?" 

Joan  laughed,  and  her  fingers  trembled  in  his 
clasp.  "Yes,  Peter,"  she  said,  "if  it's  not  too 
extravagant." 

April  gave  way  to  May,  and  Peter  and  Joan 


PETER   KINDRED  217 

tried  hard  to  study  as  they  should.  But  little 
girls  paraded  through  the  streets  in  May  parties, 
laundered  and  starched,  resplendent  with  tinsel; 
the  trees  were  in  full  leaf,  the  wind  was  a  hint  of 
lilacs.  Voices  and  sounds  up  and  down  the  streets 
softened  and  mellowed  and  droned,  footsteps  were 
slower  and  whispered  more  through  the  open 
windows.  Men  loitered  longer  and  longer  before 
the  dormitories,  and  sat  smoking  and  talking  on 
the  steps  of  lecture  halls.  Mandolins  tinkled 
through  the  Yard  at  evening,  from  yellow  lighted 
windows;  twilight  lasted  until  late,  and  night 
came  mistily,  with  a  damp  fragrance.  Barrel 
organs  played  up  and  down  Mount  Auburn 
Street;  melodies  stole  insensibly  through  the 
wind,  melodies  and  fragrances,  orchards  in  bloom 
at  last,  far  off  in  the  west  and  north,  folk  stirring, 
restless  folk  in  cities,  no  longer  lonely,  but  seek 
ing,  wandering  the  streets  upon  adventure.  Boston 
called  insistently  through  the  gradual  evenings, 
across  the  river,  called  with  lights  and  women's 
faces.  There  was  a  smell  of  tar  on  the  roads,  and 
the  noises  of  trolleys  were  low  and  distant,  mur 
murous  and  heavy.  Oh,  it  was  hard  to  work  with 
a  clear  wind  stirring  the  pages  of  a  book,  and  the 
whole  body  crying  to  be  with  a  beloved,  a  hatless, 
coatless,  eager  beloved. 

"Peter/'  Joan  said  one  day,  after  she  had  spent 
a  night  at  home,  "I've  told  mother.  She  wanted 
to  know.  She's  very  glad,  dear,  and  she  wants  to 
see  you." 


218  PETER    KINDRED 

"Joan!  I'm  scared  to  death!  I  feel  like  a 
child  caught  in  a  jam  bottle!" 

"You're  a  goose.  They're  awfully  decent 
people,  Peter.  And  I'm  not  a  jam  bottle." 

"I  know  it,  dear.  But  I'm  not  used  to  talking 
to  parents  .  .  .  anybody's  parents." 

He  had  a  long  talk,  however,  with  Joan's 
mother  and  her  father.  As  he  told  her  afterward, 
he  gulped  all  the  way  in  to  Boston.  But  as  he  ran 
up  the  stairs  her  mother  came  to  meet  him,  and 
giving  him  both  her  hands,  looked  at  his  face  for 
a  long  time.  He  looked  back  at  her,  and  they 
stood  so  until  of  a  sudden,  surprisingly,  she  bent 
forward  and  gave  him  a  kiss. 

"I  loved  her,  then,"  he  told  Joan,  "and  I  felt 
entirely  differently  toward  them  both.  As  though 
somehow  they  were  trusting  me  not  only  with  you, 
but  with  a  part  of  all  their  own  selves,  their  own 
hopes,  and  ambitions,  and  faith.  It  stiffened  me 
up  wonderfully.  But  we  had  a  great  talk,  and  I 
made  a  fearful  ass  of  myself,  of  course,  and  said 
all  sorts  of  remarkable  things  .  .  .  and  they 
didn't  seem  to  mind,  or  think  me  an  impudent 
baby  at  all  ...  and  we  did  have  a  good  talk. 
Your  father  is  a  brick  ...  I  had  no  idea  how 
much  you  mean  to  them,  Joan.  Well,"  and  he 
took  a  deep  breath,  "I  promised  we'd  hit  it  hard, 
and  your  mother  is  coming  to  Cambridge  to 
morrow  to  see  you — and  we're  all  to  take  tea 
in  my  room  afterwards.  Jinks,  it's  a  jolly 
world!" 


PETER    KINDRED  219 

The  old  house  on  Holyoke  street  waited  joyous 
ly  for  tea  time.  A  copper  kettle,  unused  for  very 
nearly  two  years,  stood  boldly  on  a  table,  scoured 
and  burnished  for  the  occasion  by  Franklin,  that 
kindest  and  very  oldest  of  negroes.  Before  it 
ranged  four  nondescript  cups ;  Peter  had  had  one, 
Don  had  furnished  two,  and  Franklin  again,  the 
fourth.  No  matter,  they  would  hold  tea  from  the 
brown  tea  pot  with  the  broken  handle,  just  as 
well.  And  to  the  side  towered  a  small  mountain 
of  Cambridge's  noblest  and  stickiest  cakes,  which 
had  cost  Peter  all  that  was  left  of  a  bank  account. 
With  the  tea  table  behind  him,  dark  against  the 
window  and  the  failing  light,  and  with  Don  beside 
him,  Peter  awaited  his  guests.  It  was  not  until 
they  had  come  that  Peter  realized  he  had  bought 
neither  sugar  nor  cream  for  the  tea. 

Helen  was  excited  at  being  finally  in  Peter's 
room,  and  peeked  in  at  Don's  room  across  the 
way,  and  giggled  to  find  it  in  disorder,  but  Don 
had  left  it  so  quite  on  purpose,  a  purpose  as 
stubborn  and  illogical  as  a  small  child's.  Joan 
said  little,  but  after  she  had  looked  around  Peter's 
room,  went  quietly  to  his  desk  and  sat  there  and 
looked  out  of  the  window  across  Mount  Auburn 
street,  as  Peter  must  have  done  his  three  years 
at  college,  as  he  would  still  be  sitting  some 
times  while  in  her  own  room  she  bent  above  her 
books. 

That  evening,  at  supper,  even  Don  was  restless, 
and  had  no  heart  for  work.  He  and  Peter  sat 


220  PETER    KINDRED 

together  in  the  Green  Lantern,  before  their  own 
familiar  table,  and  he  fingered  the  rough,  blue 
patterned  cloth  absently. 

" Peter,"  he  said  abruptly,  "let's  go  in  town 
to-night.  We  might  try  the  Pops.  Walk  in  and 
back.  What  do  you  say?" 

"Great.    I  could  no  more  sit  home  to-night . . ." 

And  presently  the  two  were  walking  toward 
Boston,  while  a  south  wind  blew  steadily  in  their 
faces,  a  long  way  out  of  the  sky. 

"Think,"  Peter  said,  as  they  left  the  lights  of 
Cambridgeport  behind  them  and  drew  near  the 
bridge,  "How  strange  it  will  be  to  be  leaving  all 
this  behind,  all  these  years,  the  many  little  things, 
Don.  To  be  coming  up  against  the  big  things  at 
last,  suddenly.  I've  caught  a  glimpse  of  it  to 
night,  a  feeling  of  it,  with  the  wind  and  the  trees 
and  the  smell  of  lilacs  and  cottages  .  .  .  the  old 
days  slipping  away,  the  days  of  drifting  and 
romancing,  and  time  to  take  a  deep  breath  and  go 
in.  They've  been  good  years,  haven't  they,  and 
they've  given  me  a  big  faith.  Somehow  tonight 
I  feel  as  though  I  shall  do  well.  At  any  rate,  it 
won't  be  for  lack  of  trying."  He  clenched  his 
fists  and  lifted  his  head. 

Don  sighed.  "Yes,"  he  said,  "You've  been 
given  faith,  ancient.  And  you  may  come  against 
big  things.  But  ...  I'm  afraid  that  it  will  be 
patience  you'll  need  the  most.  We'll  be  together, 
at  any  rate.  I  ...  I  wish  you  well,  Peter." 

He  laid  his  hand  awkwardly  on  Peter's  shoul- 


PETER   KINDRED  221 

der,  and  a  lump  rose  in  Peter's  throat.  His 
voice  trembled  as  he  answered  him. 

"I  know  it,  Don,"  he  said. 

To  Peter,  the  future  held  vast  enterprise.  He 
looked  to  the  south ;  across  the  arc  of  starry  sky, 
beyond  the  darkness  of  the  land  lay  the  great 
city  of  his  own,  sounding  with  the  deep  toned 
hurrying  of  people,  tumultuous  with  light,  with 
high  flung  walls  to  house  the  roaring  lives  and 
enterprises  of  her  folk.  There,  the  thoughtful 
walks  of  Cambridge  forsaken,  the  spacious  even 
ings,  the  drowsy  hours  forgotten,  alert  at  last,  his 
days  of  apprenticeship,  of  squiredom,  a  memory 
for  quiet  hours,  his  vigil  over,  dubbed  and  arisen, 
he  must  test  his  right  to  a  place  among  people,  a 
membership  in  folk,  he  must  build  his  home  with 
what  strength  he  had,  build  broadly  and  well,  for 
Joan  and  for  her  children.  It  was  the  religion 
worth  having. 

And  still  the  days  lengthened  and  the  twilight 
grew  longer,  the  sweet  smell  of  earth,  of  grass, 
of  trees  and  of  gardens  heavier  and  more  insis 
tent,  life  warmer  and  drowsier  in  the  sun,  as 
college  moved  gradually  to  Commencement.  The 
finals  crept  closer  and  closer,  and  for  a  week  Joan 
and  Peter  turned  stubbornly  to  their  books.  Then 
for  the  last  time  Peter  sat  in  the  curved  seats  of 
the  lecture  halls,  and  heard  the  ending  of  his 
courses,  the  farewells  of  the  kindly,  serene,  re 
lieved  professors,  with  eyes  that  looked  back 
curiously  over  his  years.  For  the  last  time  he 


222  PETER    KINDRED 

walked  under  the  hot  sun  across  the  Square,  lo 
throw  his  note  book  upon  his  desk  and  sink  into 
his  dilapidated  chair  while  through  the  open 
window  floated  the  slow,  familiar  voices  of  his 
college. 

He  had  not  written  to  his  parents  of  his  be 
trothal.  He  wanted  to  tell  them  later,  after  he 
had  found  his  work,  and  in  that  decision  Joan's 
parents  agreed  with  him.  He  would  not  think  of 
them  now;  his  examinations  waited. 

For  two  weeks  then,  he  bent  his  memory  upon 
facts,  curious  truths  that  he  had  long  forgotten 
and  would  speedily  forget.  Joan  he  saw  rarely; 
one  afternoon  they  walked  together  as  they  had 
used  to  do,  and  one  Sunday  he  dined  with  her  in 
Boston.  He  noticed  how  tired  she  looked,  how 
darkly  shadowed  her  eyes  were.  She  had  been 
working  very  late  for  many  nights. 

"I'm  going  through  with  honors,  Peter,"  she 
whispered  to  him. 

Before  his  last  examination  he  worked  the  whole 
night  through.  At  midnight  his  mind  fought  with 
weariness ;  but  at  three  o'clock  he  was  wide  awake. 
The  house  was  utterly  still;  an  unfathomable 
silence  held  all  the  land  in  breathlessness  and 
hush.  He  alone,  of  all  people,  lived  and  moved 
and  breathed.  His  thoughts  were  almost  audible 
in  the  stillness,  like  a  thin  music;  the  leaves  of 
his  book  turned  with  noisy  rustlings;  his  room 
was  peopled  with  the  creatures  of  his  fancy.  The 
world  slept,  the  world  was  dead.  Across  the  silent 


PETER   KINDRED  223 

Yard,  in  other  streets  Joan  lay  asleep ;  he  dreamed 
of  her  hair,  curved  delicately  above  the  pillow. 
A  cart  rolled  down  Holyoke,  the  horse's  hoofs 
making  a  friendly  noise  through  the  quiet 
ness.  He  drew  back  the  curtain  of  his  window; 
dawn  was  misty  and  gray  outside,  and  in  the  east 
a  band  of  faint  yellow  lay  across  the  sky.  Slowly 
he  rose  and  stretched  his  arms  wide  apart;  with 
quiet  steps  he  went  across  the  room  and  out  into 
the  hall.  A  great,  darker  silence  enveloped  him, 
as  he  made  his  way  down  the  stairs  that  creaked 
as  he  went.  He  opened  the  door  and  stepped  out 
into  the  morning.  The  greater  stars  were  pale 
in  the  dawning,  and  a  cold,  damp  wind  blew 
gently  against  his  face.  The  houses  were  deeper 
gray  against  the  sky,  with  no  windows  awake; 
the  arc  lamp  at  the  corner  was  faded  in  the 
growing  light.  The  air  was  fresh,  as  though  it 
had  been  washed  in  clear  iced  water,  and  he  took 
a  deep  breath  of  it.  Far  off  an  early  car  swung 
grumbling  dully  around  a  curve. 

Across  the  hushed  Square  he  went,  past  the 
chill  Yard,  the  looming  dormitories  silent  among 
the  trees,  and  on  toward  Radcliffe  until  at  last 
he  came  before  Bertram  Hall.  One  window  there 
was  Joan's,  where  she  lay  sleeping.  He  stood  a 
long  while  watching  it,  and  his  heart  was  like  the 
clear  telling  of  a  prayer.  He  turned  finally  and 
went  home;  Don  was  at  his  desk  already,  as 
though  he  had  always  been  there. 

At  noon  Peter  came  out  of  the  shadow  of  Sever 


224  PETER    KINDRED 

into  the  sun,  crossed  the  Yard  slowly,  and  went 
to  his  room  and  slept.  College  was  over ;  he  had 
done  well. 

The  next  day  was  his  last  in  Cambridge;  his 
trunk  went  early  in  the  morning,  and  in  the  after 
noon  he  went  with  Joan  on  a  long  walk  through 
Waverly,  to  sit  finally  where  they  had  often  been, 
on  a  low  stone  wall  with  a  wide  slope  of  meadow 
before  them,  an  orchard  distantly,  and  a  hill  with 
red  bushes  beyond.  Above  them  spread  the  kind 
sky  of  New  England,  and  white  pilgrim  clouds 
sailed  gravely  by.  They  sat  there,  hand  in  hand, 
watching  the  clouds  moving  in  the  south,  thinking 
their  long,  long  thoughts  together,  with  no  need 
of  words.  Indeed,  there  was  nothing  that  they 
might  say,  save  that  they  were  dear  to  one  an 
other,  and  their  hands  nervously  entwined  told 
them  so  better  than  their  lips  could.  It  was  their 
last  day  together  for  a  long  while,  and  there  was 
much  to  be  accomplished  before  they  met 
again. 

"Now,  that  it's  come,"  Peter  said,  "it's  hard 
to  go,  Joan." 

"It  is  very  hard,  Peter." 

"I  feel  as  though  there  were  a  thousand  things 
that  I  must  say,  and  yet  there  is  nothing." 

"I  too,  dear." 

"Oh,  Joan,"  he  cried,  of  a  sudden,  "Do  you 
love  me?" 

She  smiled  and  bent  toward  him  and  kissed  him. 
They  said  no  more,  and  as  the  sun  sank  lower  to 


PETER   KINDRED  225 

the  tree  tops  they  clambered  from  the  wall  and 
returned  slowly,  with  linked  arms  to  Cambridge. 
But  Peter,  turning,  said  good-bye  to  that  field  and 
that  low  wall. 

Don  had  still  another  day  to  wait  and  then  a 
summer  in  the  west  before  he  came  to  New  York. 
The  four  friends  sat  at  supper  in  the  Green  Lan 
tern,  and  Peter  said  good-bye  there  to  Mrs.  Pren- 
tiss  and  to  Susan.  There  would  be  many  Peters 
after  him,  but  they  were  no  less  sorry  at  his 
going,  and  with  his  dessert  Susan  gave  him  two 
pots  of  cream. 

He  said  good-bye  to  Joan  later.  He  was  aghast 
at  really  leaving  her;  his  mind  murmured  her 
name  over  and  over  again,  soundlessly.  For  a 
moment  she  clung  to  him  as  though  she  would  not 
suffer  him  to  go. 

"Good-bye,"  she  whispered. 

And  that  was  all,  and  she  had  left  him  swiftly. 
In  numb  amazement  he  followed  Don,  and  in  the 
car  as  it  clattered  and  shrilled  toward  Boston  his 
mind  was  weaving  thoughts  of  no  importance, 
names  and  phrases,  far  out  beyond  his  body.  But 
he  was  glad  that  Don  was  beside  him.  The  car 
sped  over  the  open  bridge,  and  with  a  start  he  saw 
the  familiar  curve  of  lamps  on  either  bank,  the 
distant  arc  of  the  bridge  lights,  the  shivering  pools 
of  gold  in  the  still,  dark  river  below  him,  the 
blacker  mass  of  Boston  beyond,  against  a  sky  of 
stars.  It  was  going  very  fast,  all  of  it ;  there  was 
little  left  him  of  all  those  years,  save  what  he 


226  PETER    KINDRED 

might   remember:    an  hour,   or  even  less.     He 
turned  to  Don  almost  in  bewilderment. 

"Why,"  he  said,  "it  was  only  a  day  or  so  ago 
that  I  came  down  from  Exeter!  I  seem  only  to 
have  grasped  at  something,  and  then  it  was  gone, 
something  I  saw  and  wanted  ...  it  is  almost  as 
though  it  had  never  been!  Three  years!" 

Down  the  narrow,  crooked  streets  they  went  to 
gether,  into  the  smoky,  gloomy  station,  and  out 
along  the  platform  beside  the  waiting  train. 
There  Don  left  him. 

"Good-bye,  old  one,"  he  said.  "Keep  a  stiff 
upper  lip  and  hit  hard."  He  hesitated  as  though 
he  would  say  more,  but  he  seemed  embarrassed, 
indeed,  at  what  he  would  have  said,  and  wrung 
Peter 's  hand  clumsily,  and  turned  and  went 
swiftly  back  along  the  platform.  Peter  watched 
him  go  as  though,  in  his  going,  Cambridge  went, 
too. 

Beyond  the  shed  of  the  station  the  tracks  spun 
out  in  myriad  shining  lines,  crossed  and  recrossed 
each  other;  a  bridge,  black  against  the  sky, 
soared  vaguely  over  the  yard ;  red  lights  twinkled 
near  by,  and  farther  and  farther,  until  they  were 
lost,  red  lights  and  green,  low  along  the  rails  or 
high  among  signal  towers,  burning  clear  and 
abruptly  through  the  night.  The  station  was 
noisy  with  the  escaping  steam  of  engines,  and 
with  the  muffled  hurrying  and  the  occasional  voices 
of  people.  Beyond,  along  the  rails,  above  the 
south,  the  night  was  calm,  distant.  Peter  climbed 


PETER   KINDRED  227 

the  high  steps  of  his  car,  and  crept  into  his  berth. 

Later  he  awoke  and  watched  the  darkness 
rush  past  his  window,  occasionally  shot  with 
sudden  gold  lights  that  came  and  were  gone. 
The  monotonous  hum  of  the  train  soothed  him, 
save  when  his  body  tossed  as  the  car  swung  to  a 
curve. 

Far  behind  him  in  the  night  lay  Boston  and 
Cambridge,  quiet  and  forsaken.  The  little  wooden 
houses  were  asleep  on  Mount  Auburn  Street,  and 
the  Yard  wr.s  dark,  with  those  same  stars  above 
the  dormitories  that  he  could  see  from  his  win 
dow.  They  watched  above  Joan,  too ;  he  thought 
with  a  pang  how  much  closer  each  gold  light  would 
be  to  her,  as  he  passed  it,  than  he  would  be  in  the 
morning.  And  Cambridge — Cambridge  would 
sleep  for  a  summer,  and  the  ghosts  of  his  foot 
steps  and  the  echoes  of  Don's  voice  and  his  would 
drift  in  the  deserted  house  on  Holyoke  with  the 
warm  odor  of  trees  and  grass.  And  then  would 
come  autumn  and  the  wave  of  another  generation 
would  break  over  Harvard,  driving  echoes  and 
ghosts  before  it. 

He  woke  again  in  the  wan  morning  light  to  see 
huddled  gray  tenements,  draggled  with  hanging 
wash,  flying  past  him.  He  dressed  himself 
soberly,  feeling  cold  and  nervously  excited.  The 
train  clicked  over  the  Harlem  Eiver,  sparkling 
in  the  early  sunlight,  and  sped  along  between  close 
tenements.  He  looked  at  them  curiously,  for  now 
this  city  was  his  home,  and  these  would  be  a  part 


228  PETER    KINDRED 

of  him.  The  train  swooped  into  the  black  tunnel. 
In  the  station  people  went  by  him  hurriedly,  in 
tent,  worried  and  thoughtful.  He  walked  slowly, 
with  his  shoulders  back  and  his  chin  held  high, 
thinking  of  Don.  He  went  down  into  the  lighted 
crashing  of  the  subway.  A  short  man  with  a  thin, 
twisted  mouth  stumbled  against  him,  and  snarled. 
A  tall  woman  in  black  shoes  with  soiled  white  tops 
and  draggled  heels  walked  stiffly  up  and  down  the 
platform,  chewing  a  bit  of  gum.  The  air  was 
hot  and  lifeless  in  the  subway;  there  was  a  stale 
smell  of  cigarettes  and  papers  and  dust.  Peter 9a 
eyes  widened.  He  had  come  home. 


CHAPTEE  IX 
/ 

THEEE  is  a  street  in  lower  New  York  that  an 
swers  to  the  nickname  of  Newspaper  Row, 
where  a  group  of  the  great  city  dailies  have  their 
unimpressive  offices.  At  the  foot  of  the  street  an 
elevated  railroad  bulks  darkly  against  the  struc 
ture  of  Brooklyn  Bridge ;  the  bridge  is  lost  behind 
offices,  and  soars  majestically  for  the  river.  Be 
neath,  hurry  a  constant  throng  of  people  over 
cobblestones;  horses  and  trucks,  motors,  trolleys, 
with  a  great  hubbub,  blowing  of  whistles,  shouting 
of  newspaper  vendors  and  clanging  of  bells.  Fac 
ing  this  is  the  small  sweep  of  open  park,  the  very 
determined  court  house,  and  beyond,  the  lofty, 
mountainous  roofs  of  the  lower  skyline,  with  the 
chill  stone  tower  of  the  Woolworth  Building  im 
measurably  high  against  the  clear  and  pale  sky, 
so  high  that  it  seems  almost  as  if  from  its  topmost 
windows  one  could  see  far  across  the  ocean  to 
London  and  Madrid,  and  all  the  south  outspread 
under  the  sun,  its  hazy  valleys,  mountains  and 
river  courses. 

229 


230  PETER    KINDRED 

To  this  street  Peter  came  with  his  introduction 
from  Helen,  and  presented  it  nervously  to  her 
cousin,  a  sub-editor  of  the  Sun.  The  man  shook 
hands  with  him  cordially,  and  took  him  at  once  to 
his  chief.  In  the  newspaper  offices,  all  seemed  to 
be  noise  and  confusion,  coatless  and  perspiring 
men  at  typewriters,  some  kicking  their  heels,  talk 
ing,  smoking,  rushing  here  and  there  with  sheets 
of  paper,  tables  piled  high  with  all  manner  of 
things,  papers,  scribbled  and  torn,  a  noise  of  dis 
tant  machinery.  They  waited  deferentially  for 
the  chief  to  be  ready  to  talk  to  them.  He  turned 
at  last  and  looked  blankly  up  at  Peter.  The  sub 
editor  explained,  and  the  chief's  face  grew  weary. 

" There M  be  nothing  for  you  to  do,"  he  said, 
"we're  laying  off  men  over  the  summer.  Sorry." 

The  sub-editor  led  Peter  back  again,  and  shook 
hands  with  him.  *  *  Too  bad, ' '  he  murmured.  *  '  It 's 
hard  now,  you  know  ...  you  might  try  the 
Tribune  up  the  street  .  .  .  next  door  .  .  .  they're 
looking  for  young  college  men.  Good  luck.  Drop 
in  any  time  .  .  .  glad  to  have  met  you." 

Peter  went  out  into  the  street  with  a  hollow  feel 
ing  in  his  body.  It  was  unbelievable  how  suddenly 
this  thing  had  happened.  He  had  expected  .  .  . 
he  hardly  knew  what  he  had  expected,  but  nothing 
so  abrupt.  He  had  had  an  introduction,  and  he 
had  thought  that  even  if  he  were  not  placed,  he 
would  be  no  poorer.  But  as  he  came  into  the 
street  again,  he  realized  suddenly  that  he  had  no 
introduction  now,  and  that  in  exchange  for  it,  he 


PETER   KINDRED  231 

had  received  nothing.  He  was  vastly  poorer.  The 
curtness  of  the  affair  troubled  him,  as  though  it 
had  been  utterly  impossible  from  the  beginning, 
as  though  he  had  been  impudent  somehow  in  even 
thinking  of  such  a  thing.  He  stared  thoughtfully 
across  the  park  at  the  many-windowed  buildings. 
People  moved  by  him  rapidly,  and  he  watched 
them,  troubled.  They  went  along  with  swift 
strides,  elbowing  their  way,  their  thoughts  appar 
ently  intent  upon  some  inward  worry,  jealous  of 
time,  of  people,  of  all  things  that  might  hinder 
them. 

Peter  took  grave  counsel  with  himself.  He  had 
been  thrown  more  suddenly  upon  his  own  re 
sources  than  he  had  expected,  and  in  a  momentary 
flash  of  panic,  he  knew  those  resources  to  be  weak, 
how  weak  he  did  not  know,  he  had  not  experienced 
or  considered.  He  recalled  what  the  sub-editor 
had  said  to  him  about  the  Tribune,  and  he  hesi 
tated,  but  there  seemed  to  be  no  avoiding  it.  He 
could  not  content  himself  with  this  one  refusal 
and  go  home  ...  to  do  what!  He  did  not  know 
that  either,  and  yet  the  idea  of  walking  unbidden 
into  the  Tribune  office  was  repugnant  to  him; 
it  seemed  impudent  and  undignified.  But  there 
was  no  help  for  it,  he  must  try,  and  again  he  felt 
a  rush  of  panic  at  the  thought  that  if  he  were  re 
fused  he  would  be  still  poorer,  and  indecision  at 
the  thought  following  it,  that  if  he  went  home  he 
would  still  have  the  Tribune  as  a  possibility,  for 
other  and  more  propitious  days.  But  he  frowned 


232  PETER    KINDRED 

at  himself  finally,  and  went  into  the  Tribune  build 
ing  with  a  slow-beating  heart. 

He  came  to  a  rail,  separating  him  from  a  tele 
phone,  an  operator,  and  a  tall  office  boy,  who 
seemed  to  have  recently  ontgrown  the  suit  he 
wore.  He  asked  to  be  announced  to  the  managing 
editor  with  a  voice  that  not  all  the  determination 
of  his  will  could  make  steady.  The  telephone  girl 
and  the  office  boy  let  the  momentum  of  their  talk 
run  on  a  moment,  and  then  the  boy  came  amiably 
to  the  rail,  and  asked  Peter  his  name. 

"Mr.  Peter  Kindred,"  said  Peter,  and  then 
added  hastily,  "he  won't  know  me  though." 

The  telephone  girl  looked  at  him  coldly  and  im 
pudently,  and  the  office  boy  lounged  at  the  rail 
pleasantly. 

"What  d'ye  want  to  see  him  about?" 

Peter's  face  burned  and  words  died  in  him.  It 
was  impossible  to  tell  this  creature  why  he  wanted 
to  see  the  editor. 

"What  difference  does  it  make?"  he  said  at  last 
faintly. 

"What  d'ye  want  to  see  him  about?"  the  office 
boy  asked  again,  less  amiably,  and  the  telephone 
girl  smirked. 

Peter  was  silent;  it  was  a  dreadful  situation. 
Somehow,  in  the  attitude  of  these  two  people  he 
sensed  mockery;  before  them  he  was  being  made 
to  look  ridiculous.  He  grew  furious,  but  the  more 
his  cheeks  burned,  the  more  impossible  it  was  for 
him  to  speak  with  assurance,  the  more  impossible, 


PETER   KINDRED  233 

indeed,  to  think  of  what  to  say.  When  his  own 
silence  had  become  unendurable  to  him  he  re 
peated  his  request. 

"I  want  to  see  the  editor,"  he  said. 

"What  about?" 

Peter  spoke  as  stubbornly  and  as  brazenly  as  he 
could.  "I  want  a  job  here.'* 

But  even  as  he  said  it,  he  knew  that  he  had 
lost  a  job,  even  if  there  were  one  to  be  had.  The 
telephone  girl  laughed  outright,  and  the  office  boy, 
grinning  widely,  walked  behind  a  partition  and 
presently  reappeared,  so  soon,  in  fact,  that  he 
could  not  have  gone  more  than  a  dozen  steps. 

"He  says  he  ain't  got  nothing  for  you,"  he 
said,  smiling  in  high  amusement.  Peter  tried  to 
meet  his  eyes,  tried  to  look  stern,  to  look  indiffer 
ent,  but  his  eyes  trembled.  Confusion  and  morti 
fication  overwhelmed  him,  and  without  a  word  he 
turned  and  left  the  place. 

Once  outside,  with  the  sunshine  blinking  in  his 
eyes,  he  stood  irresolute,  feeling  very  small  and 
shameful.  It  seemed  to  him  that  many  people  as 
they  went  by  in  the  sun  were  laughing  at  him 
grimly,  but  it  did  not  lessen  the  half  furtive  speed 
of  their  going  and  coming.  Then  he  grew  angry 
indeed  at  himself,  and  cursed  himself  in  round 
and  blasphemous  numbers.  But  it  all  did  no  good ; 
he  was  oppressed  with  a  sense  of  the  lost  oppor 
tunity  he  had  feebly  let  go  by.  The  high  office 
buildings  stared  down  at  him  from  the  sky  with 
blank,  impersonal  windows ;  there  was  nothing  left 


234.  PETER    KINDRED 

him  to  do,  and  sore  and  depressed  lie  started 
home.  Beyond  the  foot  of  the  bridge  he  found 
himself  on  the  Bowery,  and  thought  he  might  walk 
the  length  of  it. 

The  name  roused  him  to  curiosity,  linked  as  it 
was  with  his  childhood  books  and  occasional  crim 
inal  tales.  He  forgot  his  unhappiness  for  a  time 
and  walked  briskly,  peering  down  the  streets  he 
passed,  standing  before  the  small,  dark  shops, 
wondering  to  see  so  very  many  of  them  pawn 
shops,  each  with  its  identical  dusty  store  of  re 
volvers,  flimsy  violins  and  sorry  jewelry.  The 
street  was  gloomy  with  shadow;  the  elevated 
trains  clattered  and  jarred  above  him,  but  the 
Bowery  was  lonely,  there  were  few  people.  A 
large  woman  in  an  untidy  black  blouse  came  out 
of  a  doorway  and  gaped  about  her ;  she  might  have 
been  a  character  from  Dickens,  but  she  seemed 
phlegmatic  and  sleepy  and  dull.  A  dark-browed 
man  in  a  derby  swaggered  out  of  a  saloon  and 
went  down  a  side  street;  Peter's  eyes  followed 
him.  There,  for  instance,  might  go  such  a  villain 
as  he  had  often  read  about.  Here  was  a  swag 
gering  creature  in  a  derby  who  came  out  of  a  sa 
loon  and  disappeared,  and  lo  and  behold,  all  the 
underworld  came  with  him  and  laid  tempestuous 
siege  to  Peter's  mind.  Down  a  street  he  went  him 
self,  looking  up  at  the  tenements ;  babies  sprawled 
before  him,  old  women  gossiped  in  doorways,  a 
warm  smell  of  unclean  places  drummed  on  his  nos 
trils.  There  were  dirty  children  playing  in  the 


PETER   KINDRED  235 

gntters,   on  skates,   spinning  tops,  fighting  and 
shouting,  running,  as  though  all  the  world  were 
just  like  this,  a  huddled  squalor,  a  crowded,  peo 
pled  place,  as  though  there  were  no  other  world 
to  envy  or  disdain. 

Yet  here  Peter  was  made  aware  of  a  fierce  pulse 
of  life,  a  reality,  a  crude,  raw  energy  that  stirred 
and  troubled  him.  It  was  like  dipping  below  sur 
face  waters  into  the  green  rush  of  a  deep  tide; 
what  monstrous  passions  moved  there,  what  bru 
tal  forces,  what  untutored  faith!  For  the  first 
time  he  hesitated  to  formulate  what  he  had  seen  in 
the  usual  comforting  terms  of  academic  eco 
nomics.  Finally,  he  became  confused  with  many 
things,  with  the  unnecessary  gorgeousness  of  the 
wealthy,  with  the  utter  mawkishness  of  their  pity 
and  sympathy  for  the  unfortunate,  with  the  wait 
ing  land,  fertile  but  hard,  lonely,  and  exigent,  with 
the  intense  and  dull  stupidity  of  the  poor.  They 
had  no  need  of  pity.  If  anything,  they  had  need 
of  a  thoughtful  hatred,  to  get  behind  them  and 
push  them  somewhere.  They  had  need  of  savage 
control. 

66 There  ought  to  be  an  impersonal  power,  an  all- 
powerful  bureau,  to  size  them  up,  individually, 
and  give  them  work." 

Such  a  bureau  might  just  as  well  limit  the  num 
ber  of  their  offspring.  "The  devil !"  Peter  said; 
"it  would  be  better  if  the  rich  knew  how  to  have 
more  babies." 

But  at  any  rate,  until  some  intolerant  force  took 


236  PETER    KINDRED 

them  in  hand  and  gave  each  one  the  right  sort  of 
work,  and  made  it  sure,  the  poor  would  be  just  as 
helpless  and  driven  as  ever ;  and  every  man 's  mus 
cles  ought  to  be  worth  enough  money  to  feed  a 
family  of  ...  a  decent  sized  family,  of  course. 

And  there  was  the  sensible  power  again,  hating 
them  because  they  were  poor  and  dirty  and  fool 
ish.  It  was  much  better  than  pussyfooting  up  and 
down  and  loving  them  a  great  deal,  and  leaving 
them  there.  Education  .  .  . 

The  logic  of  it  brought  him  back  to  himself 
again,  and  the  disasters  of  the  morning.  He  had 
not  found  work;  that  was  bad  enough,  but  not 
half  the  disappointment  in  himself,  for  out  of  an 
encounter  with  an  office  boy  and  a  telephone  girl, 
his  confidence  in  himself  had  come  well  cowed.  If 
only,  he  told  himself  again  and  again,  he  had  had 
the  impudence  to  tell  the  office  boy  he  carried 
grave  news  of  the  Balkans,  of  the  White  House, 
of  the  editor's  wife — anything;  and  yet  he  knew 
that  he  would  never  have  the  impudence  for  that. 
He  saw  before  him  a  long  line  of  office  boys,  and 
he  would  be  forced  to  whip  his  spirit  to  meet  them. 
Yet  now  he  knew  that  no  matter  how  bravely  he 
considered  what  he  would  do  and  say,  at  the  actual 
moment  he  would  be  no  match  for  them,  no  match 
for  anyone.  It  was  a  frightening  thing  to  con 
sider. 

His  parents  accepted  his  failure  philosophically 
enough,  and  he  thought  he  detected  a  mildly  tri 
umphant  gleam  in  his  father's  eye.  His  mother 


PETER   KINDRED  1237 

gave  him  a  smile  and  a  pat  of  encouragement,  but 
it  was  a  matter  of  entire  indifference  to  Edith; 
for  her  the  world  was  a  simple  grouping  of  men 
with  and  without  money,  and  the  daughters  of 
such  men.  That  there  should  or  should  not  be 
work  was  a  question  indeed  far  removed  from  any 
vital  matter. 

For  a  day  he  gave  his  attention  anxiously  to 
what  he  would  do,  but  he  came  to  no  decision,  and 
found  no  way  out  of  his  difficulties.  The  want  sec 
tion  of  a  newspaper  disclosed  nothing;  no  other 
newspaper  was  advertising  for  cub  reporters,  no 
business  men  needed  inexperienced  men,  save  as 
office  boys;  there  was  a  dearth,  apparently,  only 
of  cooks  and  general  houseworkers,  and  a  great 
quantity  of  chauffeurs,  governess-companions, 
and  long-experienced  men  in  every  field,  all  filled 
to  the  brim  with  energy  and  ability,  it  seemed, 
and  willing  to  work  for  almost  no  salary  at  all — 
that  is,  all  except  the  governesses,  who  invari 
ably  stipulated  a  large  salary  and  light  labors. 
Peter  grew  close  to  bewilderment ;  he  wondered  if 
anyone  wanted  him  at  all. 

In  the  afternoon,  with  a  sinking  heart,  he  went 
to  another  newspaper.  It  was  useless  to  stand 
and  argue  there ;  he  told  his  business  to  the  office 
boy  at  once,  and  was  at  once  declined.  He  had  not 
expected  anything  else,  and  walked  home  again, 
his  hands  thrust  deeply  into  his  pockets. 

That  night  at  dinner  he  asked  his  father's  ad 
vice.  Mr.  Kindred  senior  looked  important  at 


238  PETER    KINDRED 

that,  and  settled  himself  in  his  chair,  with  a  clear 
ing  of  the  throat. 

"Hmm,"  he  said,  "let  me  see.  Yon  want  a 
newspaper  job.  Well,  try  the  newspapers,.  I 
don't  mind  yonr  being  on  a  newspaper.  Try 
them." 

"I  have  tried  them,"  Peter  said.  "I  can't  get 
in  to  the  editor." 

"Hmmm  .  .  .  well,  it's  hard  .  .  .  what  did  you 
expect  ...  an  unlicked  cub  out  of  college?  I 
should  think  you'd  go  into  some  business,  and  get 
experience  ...  go  out  on  the  road  and  learn  to 
sell  .  .  .  it's  what  I've  told  you.  Laces  .  .  .  silks 
. . .  varnish  .  .  .  anything.  Learn  something  about 
business.  Knock  some  of  the  nonsense  out  of 
you.  Get  experience." 

Peter  pursed  his  lips.  "Perhaps  I  shall,"  he 
said,  "but  I'd  rather  stay  here  in  town,  I  think." 

His  father  smiled  amiably.  "Well,"  he  said, 
"that's  right.  Why  didn't  you  ask  me  all  this 
before?  I  might  have  sent  you  to  a  man  I  know 
on  the  Times;  he'd  have  given  you  some  good  ad 
vice,  if  anybody  could." 

Peter's  eyes  lighted.  "That's  fine,"  he  cried, 
"will  you  give  me  a  note  to  him?  I'll  go  down 
to-morrow.  I  didn't  know  you  knew  anybody  on 
the  Times." 

His  father  considered  for  a  moment.  He  had 
been  hurt  somewhat  that  Peter  had  not  come  to 
him  at  once  for  help,  and  yet  there  was  in  his  mind 
the  desire  not  to  help  Peter,  not  to  make  the  way 


PETER   KINDRED  239 

easier  for  Peter  than  it  had  been  for  him,  not  to 
smooth  off  the  edges  against  which  Peter  would 
bump.  It  would  do  the  boy  good  to  have  trouble, 
he  said;  life  had  been  made  too  simple  for  him 
entirely.  It  would  do  him  good  to  see  how  far  his 
fantastic  ideas  would  carry  him.  For  some  rea 
son  he  quite  neglected  to  say  also  that  it  would 
do  his  own  self  good  to  see  those  ideas  knocked 
out  of  Peter  for  a  while. 

"Well,"  he  said  finally,  "I'll  speak  to  one  of  the 
men  at  the  office.  He  knows  this  newspaper  fellow 
better  than  I  do,  and  I'll  see  if  he'll  give  you  an 
introduction." 

The  next  afternoon  Peter  went  idly  out  of  the 
apartment  house  and  turned  west  toward  River 
side  Drive.  It  was  a  warm  June  day,  and  already 
there  was  an  odor  of  summer  in  the  air,  the  pe 
culiar  warm  smell  of  city  summer,  of  soft  asphalt, 
of  parks  and  bushes,  of  houses  and  cooking,  of 
motors  and  washed  streets.  The  river  lay  broad 
and  deep  blue  below  the  Drive,  dotted  near  shore 
with  trim  white  boats.  Across  its  great  sweep 
rose  the  brown  cliffs  of  the  Palisades,  low  fac 
tories  &t  their  base,  wharves  and  smoke  stacks; 
green  wild  wood  above,  the  red  roof  of  a  house, 
and  over  them  the  western  sky,  from  where  river 
and  cliffs  wound  north  beyond  the  towering  walls 
of  New  York  to  be  lost  in  the  green  distance,  to 
where  the  buildings  hid  the  water  finally  as  it 
swept  south  to  the  bay.  But  water  and  sky  were 
a  different  blue  than  New  England  rivers  and 


240  PETER    KINDRED 

New  England  sky,  less  clear,  and  almost  less  blue. 
Peter  sat  down  on  a  bench  under  a  tree,  his  back 
to  the  river,  and  looked  soberly  at  the  massive 
gray  apartment  houses  that  fronted  the  water, 
across  the  Drive.  Motors  moved  by  him  smoothly, 
their  tires  whining  over  the  shiny  black  road, 
leaving  behind  them  a  blue  haze  of  smoke, 
and  a  faint  smell  of  oil  and  gasoline  and  leather. 
Children  played  up  and  down  the  pavement,  little 
girls  in  socks,  with  bobbed  hair,  neat  little  boys 
in  sailor  suits,  on  velocipedes  or  scooters,  some 
jumping  across  the  squares  of  hopscotch.  Nurse 
maids  wheeled  perambulators  up  and  down,  and 
talked  and  gossiped;  others  sat  on  benches,  baby 
carriages  before  them,  and  healthy,  clean,  washed 
and  ironed  babies  in  them,  with  rattles  and  dolls. 
Two  women  in  light  summer  suits  swung  briskly 
along  the  street,  their  clothes  ruffling  in  the  small 
breeze,  their  high-heeled  slippers  twinkling  below 
slim,  graceful  ankles.  Peter  looked  at  them 
gloomily;  this  part  of  the  city  was  given  over  to 
careless  folk,  to  children,  to  play.  Here  the  de 
pendents  of  successful  men  should  come,  un 
troubled  and  unhurried,  to  sit  in  the  sun  and 
watch  the  river  and  the  slow  boats  up  and  down. 
He  felt  almost  as  though  he  had  no  right  to  be 
there,  as  though  the  sturdy  buildings  opposite  him 
were  regarding  him  questioningly,  as  though  the 
busy  men  in  downtown  offices  were  wishing  him 
away  from  their  Drive,  this  Peter  Kindred  with 
out  a  position,  without  even  a  family  to  be  proud 


PETER   KINDRED  241 

of,  prond  enough  to  look  tranquilly  at  those 
women,  their  graceful  bodies  and  slim  ankles  and 
tmworried  laughter.  This  was  their  city,  their 
river,  their  buildings ;  in  it  they  were  at  home  to 
love  and  build,  to  woo  and  suffer  and  enjoy, 
whereas  Peter  .  .  .  what  was  he?  A  man  of  no 
importance,  from  Cambridge.  The  name  came  to 
him  with  a  rush  of  feeling,  memory,  new  courage. 
He  stared  truculently  at  the  buses  and  the 
motors  as  they  went  by.  Some  day  he,  too,  would 
live  there,  by  the  great  suffering  mackerel. 

Afternoon  slipped  into  evening;  the  blue  grew 
old  and  faded,  above  the  Palisades  the  sky  turned 
to  a  yellow  haze,  and  shadows  began  to  lengthen 
along  the  Drive.  The  water  of  the  river  deep 
ened,  and  dusk  came  from  the  east  across  the  city. 
Motors  droned  northward  in  a  gathering  stream, 
their  lighted  lamps  a  flaring  gold  in  the  gradual 
amethyst  of  dusk,  buses  with  windows  alight, 
their  decks  crowded  with  people,  rumbled  and 
jarred  through  the  traffic.  Behind  Peter  the  deep 
river  grew  deeper  and  was  lost,  save  where  tiny 
red  and  gold  lanterns  moved  with  the  passage  of 
unnoticed  boats.  The  wind  blew  colder  and  moist, 
and  in  it  drifted  from  the  south  bells  and  fog 
horns  of  ships,  faintly  and  far  off.  Across  the 
water  the  lights  of  Jersey  grew  slowly  in  uneven 
gold;  above  the  dark  looming  of  the  coast  the 
last  faint  colors  of  a  sunset  faded,  and  over  them 
the  larger  stars  already  silver,  pale  in  the  clear 
green  sky  above  the  west.  The  city  was  still, 


242  PETER    KINDRED 

voices  were  shadows,  and  only  Peter  had  no  place 
there,  no  love,  no  chance  to  build.  His  heart  sped 
with  his  thoughts  to  Boston,  and  with  troubled 
eyes  he  thought  of  Joan,  and  with  a  dry  throat 
longed  for  her  voice  at  his  side. 

The  next  morning  he  took  the  note  his  father 
had  given  him  to  the  Times.  The  man  whom  he 
had  come  to  see  was  brisk  and  emphatic,  slim,  en 
ergetic,  nervous.  When  he  had  read  the  note,  he 
shook  his  head  and  smiled. 

"Not  a  chance,"  he  said.  "I'll  take  you  in  to 
the  chief  if  you  wish,  Mr.  Kindred,  but  I  can  tell 
you  beforehand  what  he'll  say.  We  lay  off  men 
in  the  summer.  There's  no  news." 

He  was  discoursive,  and  as  Peter  stood  dumbly 
before  him,  he  went  on. 

"What  do  you  want  to  go  into  newspaper  work 
for,  anyhow?  How  do  you  know  you'll  like  it? 
There's  nothing  easy  about  reporting,  it's  the 
hardest  game  of  all.  Are  you  dead  set  on  it?" 

"No,"  said  Peter,  "but  I  need  a  job  somewhere 
— I  can  write  decent  English,  and  ...  I  need 
money." 

"Well,  if  you  want  to  be  a  writer,  there's  noth 
ing  like  the  newspapers,  no  sir  ...  it's  a  won 
derful  experience,  a  wonderful  experience.  Oh, 
absolutely.  But  I  don't  think  you'll  find  any  place 
here  in  town  this  summer.  No,  it  would  surprise 
me  very  much  if  you  did." 

"But  a  fellow  must  start  in  some  time!"  Peter 
said  desperately. 


PETER   KINDRED  243 

"  Yes,  quite  right,  quite  right.  I  had  to  start  in, 
too,  we  all  had  to." 

" How  did  you  start?" 

"Oh,  I  just  started  in,  started  in."  He  looked 
at  Peter  importantly  for  a  moment.  "Look  here, 
young  man,"  he  said  suddenly,  "you're  from  col 
lege,  aren't  you?  Well,  then  .  .  .  about  every 
other  man  who  comes  out  of  college  wants  to  be  a 
newspaper  man  here  in  New  York.  That 's  a  fact. 
And  every  newspaper  man  all  over  the  country 
has  his  eye  on  right  here.  We  have  about  a  dozen 
papers  in  the  city.  What  are  you  going  to  do? 
We  've  got  to  take  just  the  men  who  are  absolutely 
necessary,  men  we  can't  do  without.  For  that 
matter  you've  got  to  be  necessary  in  any  line  to 
get  along  in  this  town.  You've  got  to  be  some 
body.  They've  got  to  be  unable  to  get  along  with 
out  you.  But  once  you  make  a  place  here,  you're 
at  the  top,  you're  the  tenpin,  you're  the  "king.  It's 
a  great  little  town,  a  wonderful  city.  Oh,  abso 
lutely." 

"What  could  I  do?"  Peter  asked  gloomily. 

"Let's  see;  you  want  big  money;  you  want  to 
write.  Go  into  advertising.  Advertising,  that's 
it.  The  biggest  thing  in  the  country.  I  tell  you, 
young  fellow,  you're  wasting  your  time  in  the 
newspaper  offices.  I'd  be  glad  to  help  you,  if  I 
could  do  anything,  but  there's  nothing  I  could  do. 
There  are  men  in  Denver  and  Los  Angeles  and 
Washington  now  that  we  need  right  here  in  this 
office,  men  who  M  jump  at  the  chance  to  come.  But 


244  PETER    KINDRED 

we're  full  up,  full  up.  Come  in  again  some  time." 
Peter  thanked  him  and  left  the  building.  Out 
side  he  came  at  once  into  the  hurry  and  restless 
movement  of  the  Rialto,  the  theater  district,  the 
roaring  forties.  The  sun  beat  hot  on  the  street 
and  the  low  buildings;  there  was  the  sound  of 
many  people  moving,  and  a  great  stench  of  auto 
mobiles.  Men  and  women  passed  him,  talking 
loudly,  dressed  in  one  extreme  or  another,  with 
vacant  faces,  and  tight  waists,  powdered  noses, 
rouge,  cigarettes,  cigars,  pimples.  Peter  looked 
at  them  angrily.  Necessary,  necessary  .  .  .  the 
word  ran  through  his  head.  Were  these  people 
necessary  to  anyone  at  all?  That  he,  then,  should 
be  unnecessary,  filled  him  with  intolerant  anger. 
What  sort  of  a  city  might  it  be?  And  yet  these 
mummers  were  busy,  were  paid,  were  at  home  in 
the  city  where  Peter  was  unnecessary.  He  vowed 
with  a  rebellious  heart  that  he  would  not  be  un 
necessary,  but  the  thought  of  that  brisk  journalist 
worried  him,  gnawed  at  him.  There,  indeed,  was 
a  necessary  man  to  the  city,  a  man  to  reflect,  to 
express  the  great  middle  tone  of  it,  the  pitch  and 
key  of  it,  that  made  it  New  York,  nervous,  brag 
gart,  metallic,  inquisitive,  impudent,  enthusiastic. 
For  all  the  thought  bit  at  him,  it  was  understand 
able;  New  York  was  so.  But  the  Eialto  .  .  . 
Peter  was  very  sore  and  disgusted,  indeed.  At 
the  Circle  he  stopped  and  watched  a  street 
sweeper,  almost  with  affection.  There  was  a  man 
who  did  a  man's  work,  who  loved  his  God,  his  fam- 


PETER    KINDRED  245 

ily,  and  the  morality  of  his  people.  He,  too,  had 
a  place  in  the  city,  and  Peter  had  not.  And  Peter 
found  it  in  his  mind  half  to  envy  the  husky,  stolid 
policeman  who  stood  on  a  corner  and  looked  so 
confidently  about. 

That  night  he  wrote  a  long  letter  to  Joan,  to 
whom  he  had  said  nothing  before  concerning  his 
failure  and  disappointment.  However,  he  could 
keep  it  to  himself  no  longer,  although  he  did  not 
tell  her  the  entire  trouble  of  his  spirit. 

"I  have  seen  a  different  city,"  he  wrote,  "a 
city  as  remote  to  Boston,  even  to  what  I  had  con 
ceived  it  to  be,  as  Nineveh.  Curious  folk  are  suc 
cesses,  men  whom  you  and  I  would  very  like  have 
laughed  at  in  Cambridge.  They  seem  to  have  the 
knack  of  catching  people  on  the  fly;  it  is  the  only 
way  to  catch  New  Yorkers,  and  to  do  that  you 
must  have  vivid  bait.  Men  spring  up  all  over  with 
nothing  to  commend  them  save  impudence,  and 
they  sell  that  to  other  men.  A  man  changes  the 
tire  of  his  car;  a  crowd  collects  and  gapes.  And 
yet  a  moment  before  on  that  street  you  would  have 
sworn  that  no  man  there  but  was  on  an  important 
and  hurried  journey.  And  every  man,  even 
though  he  be  the  proprietor  of  a  ramshackle  shop 
with  broken  windowpanes,  has  the  one  and  only 
something  or  other,  the  finest  this  or  that,  and 
knows  more  about  all  the  world  than  all  the  world 
itself. 

"I'm  afraid  that  the  newspapers  are  impos 
sible,  my  dearest.  As  one  man  told  me,  I  must  be 


246  PETER    KINDRED 

somebody  first,  although  I  doubt  that  somewhat ; 
I  know  of  men  who  have  gone  to  work  as  report 
ers,  from  college.  But  perhaps  there  was  some 
thing  else  behind  them.  At  any  rate,  I  have  been 
rebuked  by  editors  and  office  boys.  Oh,  well,  I 
shall  find  something  soon.  Don't  worry.  But  I 
think  that  father  will  be  angry  at  our  engagement. 
Let  him. 

"Jinks,  I  am  lonely  for  Cambridge!  These 
dusty,  baked  streets,  and  these  gloomy,  high  walls 
and  the  unfriendliness  of  people  weigh  down  on 
me.  They're  not  glad  that  another  creature  has 
come  to  help  them  work  .  .  .  work?  To  run  a 
trolley,  perhaps !  I  have  a  secret ;  it  has  to  do  with 
you " 

When  he  had  written  his  letter,  he  sat  for  a 
long  while  holding  it  before  him,  his  eyes  search 
ing  for  Joan  through  remembered  images  that 
stirred  wanly  above  his  desk,  blown  to  and  fro  in 
the  slight  night  wind  from  his  open  window,  his 
body  reaching  out  to  her,  desirous,  surging  against 
the  prison  of  its  being.  It  was  good  to  write  to 
her,  as  though  she  were  there,  as  though  he  were 
telling  her  all  this.  He  brooded  so,  and  through 
the  window  from  below  came  drifting  the  slow, 
muffled  voices  of  the  city,  the  far-off  rumbling  of 
cars,  the  gradual  coming  and  going  of  motors;  a 
distant  freight  train  moved  with  long  reverbera 
tions,  hollow  bell  tolling,  and  from  the  river 
sounded  the  faint,  hoarse  horns  of  ships ;  a  block 
away  a  barrel  organ  was  playing  the  Miserere. 


PETER   KINDRED"  247 

The  summer  dragged  through  Jnne  and  July, 
the  city  grew  weary,  asphalt  melted  in  the  sun  and 
under  its  dusty  gray  covering  it  was  soft,  like 
viscous  gum.  By  breakfast  time  the  day  was  hot, 
the  wind  was  hot,  what  little  wind  there  was; 
sounds  wilted.  At  evening  men  sat  at  the  open 
windows  of  their  apartments  in  shirt  sleeves,  fan 
ning  themselves  slowly,  children  still  sprawled 
and  played  in  the  streets,  the  stench  of  motors  was 
insistent,  diffuse,  choking.  There  was  no  relief 
from  the  intolerable,  humid  heat ;  moving  or  still, 
people's  bodies  were  bathed  in  cold,  sticky  sweat. 
There  was  no  energy  in  the  city  for  anything ;  men 
and  women  sat  listlessly  at  night  on  the  benches 
of  the  Drive,  and  looked  at  the  river.  Somewhere 
distantly  there  might  be  country  and  cool  green, 
but  in  the  streets  the  thought  was  unimaginable. 
The  trees  grew  dry,  the  leaves  pale  and  dusty; 
heat  radiated  from  the  pavements  long  after  the 
sun  had  gone  down  in  a  red  murk  over  the  Pali 
sades.  Under  the  yellow  glare  of  day  the  city  was 
as  though  dead,  the  streets  almost  deserted.  At 
night  the  city  breathed  again;  families  sat  on 
doorsteps,  there  was  subdued  talk,  folk  moved 
about. 

It  was  ebb  tide  in  Peter's  courage;  he  got 
through  it  as  best  he  could,  with  grim  and  des 
perate  patience.  He  read,  wrote  letters,  walked 
about  the  city,  sat  whole  afternoons  away  in  pic 
ture  theatres  where  at  least  during  the  droning 
course  of  a  film  he  forgot  the  heat,  forgot  his 


248  PETER    KINDRED 

body,  his  clinging,  moist  clothes.  He  had  no  heart 
to  plan  anything;  he  went  without  hope  to  three 
more  newspapers,  and  found  no  encouragement; 
he  wrote  to  one  more,  and  was  unanswered.  He 
answered  many  advertisements,  some  personally, 
some  by  letter,  but  they  all  came  to  nothing.  Men 
wanted  office  boys,  or  young  clerks  to  tie  up  bun 
dles,  to  take  stock  or  to  run  errands  at  a  few  dol 
lars  a  week ;  other  offices  wanted  only  experienced 
salesmen. 

Into  Peter's  mind  was  creeping  a  full  and  bitter 
knowledge  of  what  competition  might  mean,  of 
the  unending  struggle  among  men  to  live,  of  the 
entire  loneliness  of  men  among  men.  It  seemed  to 
him  that  here  was  no  companionship  of  labor,  no 
humanity,  no  common  bond  of  men  together  fac 
ing  the  darkness,  glad,  as  they  should  be,  for  even 
the  slightest  addition  to  their  strength,  but  that 
rather  here  was  a  cold-eyed  jealousy,  scorn  of 
other  lives,  greediness  and  suspicion.  It  seemed 
as  though  he  were  denied  the  right  to  live  and  to 
work  and  to  love  and  to  build,  as  though  men 
would  be  happier  if  he  were  dead,  and  they  in 
peace  to  what  gluttony  they  pleased.  It  was 
damnably  uncarverian,  all  of  it. 

His  father,  too,  grew  impatient  at  last,  and  sent 
him  to  several  .of  his  business  acquaintances,  but 
they  could  offer  Peter  nothing  save  a  hope  of 
something  in  the  fall. 

Early  in  August  his  spirit  failed  him  entirely, 
and  for  the  first  time  he  wrote  a  shameful  letter 


PETER   KINDRED  249 

to  Joan,  a  petulant,  long  letter,  almost  the  wail  of 
a  child.  It  was  nearly  a  week  before  he  heard 
from  her  again,  and  then  she  wrote  a  splendid 
answer,  of  faith  and  encouragement. 

"Something  will  turn  up,  dear  Peter,"  she 
wrote,  "and  if  we  must  wait  until  fall,  why,  then, 
I  suppose  we  must.  You  must  not  lose  heart  .  .  . 
it  is  not  like  you  to  do  that.  Other  men  have  found 
work,  and  have  waited  even  longer.  It  is  no  criti 
cism  of  you,  dear,  that  you  have  been  unfortunate 
so  far.  It  is  miserable  that  you  should  be  in  the 
city  this  hot  summer.  But — courage !  I  shall  be 
with  you  soon,  I  know." 

Two  days  later  Peter  wrote  again. 

* '  Yoicks ! ' '  his  letter  ran,  "  it  has  come !  I  have 
found  it.  I  am  a  worker,  a  business  man,  a  crea 
ture  upon  a  salary,  a  necessary  person!  And 
Joan,  you'll  not  guess  my  salary.  Not  wages, 
mind  you — salary!  Fifteen  dollars  a  week! 

"And  here's  the  whole  thing.  Your  very  dear 
letter  crept  into  me  and  bellied  me  out  with  hope. 
I  bought  all  the  newspapers,  and  took  them  up  to 
my  room,  and  went  over  every  single  male  wanted 
column — and  I  found  it:  the  Porter-Baffle  Com 
pany  wanted  a  copy  writer  .  .  .  they're  a  big  ad 
vertising  agency,  you  know  .  .  .  and  down  I  went. 
They  have  a  lot  of  offices  way  up  on  the  fifteenth 
floor  of  one  of  the  Fourth  Avenue  buildings,  at 
Twenty-Seventh  Street.  In  I  went  with  knees 
trembling  and  all  the  scorn  I  could  get  on  my  face, 
and  asked  about  it.  There  weren't  many  answers, 


250  PETER    KINDRED 

I  think,  because  they  took  me.  A  long,  thin  crea 
ture  looked  me  all  over  and  asked  me  about  my 
experience  and  I  lied  like  a  devil  and  told  him  how 
I'd  always  been  interested  in  advertising,  ever 
since  I  was  born,  and  how  my  best  friend  at  Har 
vard  was  the  son  of  an  agent  in  the  West  .  .  . 
imagine !  But  I  nearly  choked  as  I  said  it.  And 
then  he  asked  me  to  write  a  lot  of  things  and  make 
some  sketches  of  what  he  called  layouts — I  played 
around  with  the  ideas  and  juggled  them,  and  he 
seemed  satisfied,  and  I  got  the  job.  I  got  it!  I 
got  it !  Imagine — you  dearest  old  Joan ! ' ' 

She  telegraphed  to  him  at  once;  he  found  the 
telegram  on  his  desk  at  home,  after  his  first  day 
in  the  new  office.  It  was  a  happy  homecoming; 
his  mother  and  father  smiled  at  him  across  the 
dinner  table,  and  Edith  asked  him  innumerable 
questions,  even  a  little  impressed  with  the  digni 
fied  sound  of  his  position — copy  writer  with  the 
Porter-Baffle  Company,  advertising.  His  family 
seemed  content  with  him;  he  read  in  their  faces 
nai've  satisfaction  and  pride.  He  knew  that  his 
father  would  be  talking  to  the  men  of  his  acquaint 
ance  about  his  son,  just  down  from  Harvard,  and 
gone  into  advertising,  doing  very  well,  remark 
ably.  The  thought  warmed  him,  tickled  him,  in 
deed.  He  answered  Edith's  questions  with  a  feel 
ing  of  fondness  for  her. 

After  dinner,  with  Joan's  telegram  in  his 
pocket,  he  went  slowly  down  Riverside,  and  sat 
again  upon  a  shadowed  bench  with  the  Drive  be- 


PETER   KINDRED  251 

fore  him.  Moonlight  was  pale  on  the  river,  the 
sky  was  clear  and  dim  above  the  Palisades,  and 
the  high,  broad  walls  of  the  houses  loomed  gray 
through  the  moonlight,  a  wash  of  gray,  deeply 
shadowed,  broken  with  the  gold  of  windows.  Peo 
ple  talked  nearby,  moved  up  and  down  before  him, 
arm  in  arm,  laughing  and  murmuring.  It  was  his 
city  at  last,  and  he  knew  how  beautiful  it  was. 
For  a  time,  profound  loyalty  possessed  him. 

He  was  given  a  large  flat  desk  in  a  small,  par 
titioned  room,  well  crowded  with  similar  desks  and 
men  at  them,  young  men,  for  the  most  part,  very 
busy  and  worried  young  men,  and  old  desks.  An 
immense  spread  of  window  rose  abruptly  before 
him,  and  through  it  he  could  see  northward  across 
the  city,  above  the  lower  roof  tops,  and  past  occa 
sional  high  buildings.  In  his  room  other  men 
wrote  copy  and  specialized  on  layouts;  a  man 
bought  paper  and  printing  and  cuts,  and  still  an 
other  attended  to  the  buying  of  space  in  maga 
zines  and  newspapers,  as  it  was  needed.  In  the 
room  beyond  the  partition,  a  commercial  artist  did 
sketches,  posters,  bold  color  work,  and  another, 
fine  pen  work.  In  the  large  space  outside,  type 
writers  clicked  incessantly,  office  boys  moved 
among  the  files,  clerks  kept  their  books.  Across 
its  length  were  the  private  offices  of  the  solici 
tors. 

"But,"  Peter  said  to  the  man  who  sat  nearest 
to  him,  "I  always  imagined  that  a  solicitor  was  a 


252  PETER    KINDRED 

sort  of  unpleasant  fellow,  just  about  at  the  bot 
tom  of  everything. " 

"Hell,"  said  the  man,  "not  in  this  game. 
Though  there's  all  kinds  of  solicitors.  But  these 
solicitors  are  really  a  sort  of  partner.  Different, 
you  know." 

After  a  while,  Peter  learned  the  hierarchy  of 
solicitation.  First,  and  lowest,  are  the  men  who 
solicit  for  the  newspapers.  They  move  among  the 
agencies,  urging  the  respective  merits  of  their 
newspapers  upon  unwilling  ears.  It  is  an  agent's 
duty  to  remain  both  friendly  to  them,  and  un- 
bothered  by  them,  a  difficult  and  tactful  task.( 
Next,  the  magazine  solicitors,  of  varying  impor 
tance,  according  to  their  magazines,  some,  who 
represent  the  "Saturday  Evening  Post,"  almost 
of  regal  importance.  And,  finally,  the  agency  soli 
citors. 

"You  see,"  Peter's  desk  mate  explained  to 
him,  "our  men — the  agency  men — really  have  to 
create  the  business.  That  is,  they  go  to  Mr. 
Whozis,  who  makes  glue,  say,  and  they  get  him 
to  advertise  his  glue.  They  get  him  to  spend  fifty 
thousand  dollars,  say.  That's  not  much." 

"Whew!"  said  Peter.  "How  do  they  do 
it?" 

"Oh — they  study  his  line — learn  his  problems — 
and  show  him  how  this  or  that  sort  of  advertising 
would  help  him.  Or,  now,  they  go  to  Whatshis- 
name,  who  is  advertising  already,  and  show  him 
how  he  can  do  better.  Then  they  call  in  the  maga- 


PETER   KINDRED  253 

sine  and  newspaper  solicitors,  or  they  listen  to 
their  arguments,  and  give  them  so  and  so  many 
pages  of  advertising.  And  then  we  write  up  the 
ads." 

"Jinks,"  said  Peter,  "I  should  think  that 
they'd  have  to  be  awfully  clever  and  know  a  lot 
for  that!" 

"Well,  they  do.  They're  the  slickest  men  in  the 
business.  And,  of  course,  they  have  to  know 
something." 

"But  do  they  really  know  more  about  a  man's 
business  than  he  does  himself?" 

The  acquaintance  winked.  "Well,"  he  said, 
"what's  the  difference  if  they  land  the  account, 
hey?" 

In  the  heat  of  midsummer  the  office  moved  with 
a  dash  and  a  clatter.  Every  one  seemed  to  be 
busy  all  the  time ;  it  was  as  though  great  move 
ments  were  afoot,  as  though  important  business 
matters  centered  there  from  all  over  the  country. 
The  office,  so  high,  was  cooler  than  the  street; 
men  moved  there  alertly,  urgently,  swiftly.  On 
Peter's  desk  lay  future  booklets,  pamphlets, 
advertisements,  full  pages  in  obscure  magazines, 
letters  that  would  be  copied  in  many  thousands. 
He  labored  over  them  joyously,  filled  with  a  sense 
of  the  value  of  his  part  in  big  matters,  in  large 
expenditures.  Only,  sometimes  he  wondered  at 
the  impudence  of  statements  he  was  told  to  elab 
orate. 

"Look  here,"  he  said  on  one  occasion  to  the 


254  PETER    KINDRED 

man  who  sat  next  to  him.  " Here's  this  automo 
bile  folder,  and  I'm  going  to  feature  'the  most 
beautiful  car  in  the  world. '  But,  Lord  knows,  it 
isn't  that!" 

"What's  it  to  you!"  the  man  said.  "The  pub 
lic  wants  to  hear  it.  If  you  didn't  say  it  was  the 
finest  thing  in  its  class,  they'd  think  there  was 
something  wrong  with  it.  Go  ahead — don't  worry 
— they'll  swallow  it,  alright,  alright!" 

And  again,  there  were  times  when  Peter's  copy 
came  back  rigorously  censored.  "For  God's 
sake,"  one  man  scrawled  across  the  page,  "you're 
not  selling  tea  to  ladies  in  Boston,  you're  selling 
chewing  tobacco  to  farmers  in  Wisconsin.  Talk 
to  them!" 

But  it  was  not  long  before  Peter  learned  what 
was  meant  by  a  selling  talk,  and  for  a  while  he 
took  pleasure  in  snappiness  and  what  he  thought 
might  be  salesmanship.  He  added  the  words  sell 
ing  point  and  slogan  to  his  vocabulary. 

At  the  end  of  August  he  was  tired  and  a  bit 
pale  and  thin.  He  was  unused  to  sitting  at  a  desk 
all  day,  indoors,  hard  at  work,  and  the  heat  sapped 
his  strength,  that  and  the  smother  of  the  subway. 
But  he  was  eager  and  fairly  content,  a  little 
rushed  along,  perhaps,  and  bewildered  with  the 
swift  swing  of  working  days  and  new  impressions. 
However,  when  he  learned  that  he  was  satisfac 
tory  on  the  whole,  and  that  he  might  continue  at 
his  desk  indefinitely,  he  was  jubilant,  and  planned 
to  tell  his  family  about  Joan  at  once. 


PETER   KINDRED  255 

He  came  more  proudly  home  that  night  among 
the  close-packed  and  weary  rabble,  conscious  of 
playing  a  not  unworthy  part,  feeling  himself  some 
what  a  solitary  and  romantic  figure  among  a  drab 
multitude.  He  found  his  father  in  shirt  sleeves 
sitting  solemnly  before  an  open  window  in  a 
gloomy  room,  tired  and  hot,  drawn  with  the  ac 
cumulated  weariness  of  the  summer,  silent,  jeal 
ous  of  rest  and  quiet  and  comfort.  His  mother 
was  in  another  room ;  he  was  glad  of  that,  for  he 
wanted  to  speak  to  his  father  manfully,  alone. 
But  it  was  a  difficult  thing  to  tell. 

"I'm  to  stay  on  at  the  office,"  he  said,  and  his 
father  nodded  slowly,  as  though  he  had  not  ex 
pected  anything  else.  Peter  hesitated. 

"I  thought  I  ought  to  tell  you,  sir,"  he  said,  "I 
.  .  .  I  want  to  be  married." 

His  father  did  not  move  or  speak.  Peter  cleared 
his  throat.  "I've  been  engaged  .  .  .  engaged  for 
some  time." 

"What  foolishness  is  this?"  his  father  asked, 
ominously  quiet. 

Peter  frowned.  "I've  been  engaged  .  .  .  for 
some  time,"  he  said  again.  After  a  silence  he  told 
his  father  about  Joan.  Mr.  Kindred  brought  his 
hand  down  on  the  arm  of  his  chair. 

"Well,  then,"  he  said,  "you'd  better  forget  all 
about  it,"  and  then,  explosively,  "you'll  get  no 
help  from  me."  He  was  very  angry. 

"I  didn't  expect  to,"  Peter  said  coldly. 

"  No  $    And  how  did  you  think  you  'd  live  I ' ' 


256  PETER    KINDRED 

Peter  told  him.  "We  both  intend  to  work,"  He 
said. 

His  father  said  nothing  for  a  long  while.  Then 
he  threw  himself  back'  in  his  chair. 

"I  might  have  expected  something  like  this," 
he  muttered.  At  that  moment  his  wife  entered  the 
room. 

"Here,"  he  cried  to  her,  "here.  Listen  to  this. 
The  boy  .  .  .  Tell  your  mother,  Peter." 

"Peter  .  .  .  what  is  it?"  his  mother  cried  in 
alarm. 

"Nothing,  mother,"  Peter  said  humbly,  "noth 
ing,  except  that  I'm  engaged  and  I'm  going  to  be 
married." 

' '  Peter ! ' '  His  mother  went  up  to  him  hurriedly 
and  shook  him.  "What  do  you  mean?" 

"I've  been  engaged  since  April,"  Peter  said 
coldly.  He  disliked  the  scene  intensely ;  he  wanted 
to  get  away  from  it.  His  father  threw  himself 
back  in  his  chair  again,  but  his  mother's  face 
lighted  with  a  rush  of  pleasure. 

"To  that  Boston  girl!  Why,  Peter!"  She 
looked  at  him,  and  then  kissed  him  sentimentally. 
He  disliked  that,  too. 

"Bah,"  his  father  cried.    "Well  ..." 

"You  bad  boy,  to  have  fooled  me  all  this  time. 
But  I  knew  it,"  his  mother  said  slyly. 

"Not  a  red  penny,"  his  father  muttered. 

His  mother  sat  down  and  looked  up  at  him 
affectionately.  She  wanted  to  know  all  about 
it 


PETER    KINDRED  257 

"But  you're  so  young,"  she  cried,  "how  do  you 
know?"  To  her  it  wasi  entirely  a  matter  of  ro 
mance. 

"She's  of  very  good  family,  isn't  she?"  she 
said.  "You  two  children  .  .  .  are  her  folks  so 
rich?  .  .  .  dear  me." 

Peter  was  on  edge  with  impatience  and  nervous 
ness.  He  wanted  to  cry  out.  His  father  said 
nothing,  but  stared  gloomily  before  him.  His 
mother  asked  him  a  hundred  questions,  repeating 
herself  over  and  over  again.  She  was  amazed  and 
excited  at  the  thought  of  a  wedding;  her  friends 
kept  popping  into  her  mind ;  she  thought  how  sur 
prised  they  would  be,  she  wanted  them  to  be  en 
vious.  She  wondered  what  Joan's  parents  were 
like,  and  if  they  would  care  for  her.  Her  whole 
life  swelled  with  curiosity,  with  new  opportuni 
ties,  with  legitimate  and  sentimental  excitement. 
But  Peter's  father  sat  stubbornly  mute,  nursing 
his  anger  at  what  was  vaguely  in  his  mind  as  his 
son's  ingratitude. 

Dinner  was  eaten  in  silence  and  constraint. 
Peter  knew  that  his  mother  had  told  Edith,  for 
she  looked  at  him  in  a  new  and  somewhat  startled 
manner,  as  though,  for  the  first  time,  it  occurred 
to  her  that  Peter  was  a  male,  with  all  the  due  emo 
tions  of  a  male,  and  the  proper  sexual  desires. 
There  was  unspoken  curiosity,  too,  in  her  gaze, 
for  what  Joan  might  be;  as  for  his  mother,  she 
made  no  attempt  to  conceal  it.  How,  or  on  what 
Peter  would  live,  never  entered  her  head;  her 


258  PETER    KINDRED 

mind  was  set  upon  engagements,  weddings,  gossip 
and  receptions. 

"The  prettiest  wedding  I  ever  saw,"  she  said, 
"was  at  night,  in  the  girl's  home.  The  place  was 
full  of  white  flowers,  and  an  orchestra  played  be 
hind  palms." 

"That  must  have  been  great  fun!"  Peter  mut 
tered. 

"It  was  lovely.    I  cried,"  his  mother  said. 

"Oh,  that's  all  nonsense,"  Peter  exploded.  "A 
lot  of  silly  twaddle  and  fuss  about  a  perfectly  sim 
ple  thing.  You  can  make  just  as  fine  a  home  and 
have  just  as  many  babies  from  a  justice  of  the 
peace!" 

And  then  his  father  lost  his  temper.  ' '  Confound 
it ! "  he  cried.  '  '  Peter,  be  still !  I  Ve  heard  about 
all  the  foolishness  from  you,  young  man,  that  I 
can  stand!" 

But  the  next  night  his  father  called  him  in  to 
his  own  room,  and  carefully  shut  the  door. 

"Now,  then,  Peter,"  he  said,  but  with  half  a 
tone  of  gentleness  in  his  voice,  "what  is  all  this 
about  marrying  and  being  engaged  and  this  .  .  V 
Joan?" 

"Why,  there's  not  much,"  Peter  said,  a  bit 
wearily.  "I  told  you  all  there  was  to  tell  last 
night.  ..." 

"Yes,  I  know.  Who  is  she?"  ...  Peter  told 
him. 

"What  do  her  parents  say?" 


PETER   KINDRED  259 

"They  think  it's  splendid, "  Peter  said,  with  an 
emphasis  that  lie  could  not  control.  His  father 
stroked  his  chin. 

"Of  course  you  understand  that  this  is  a  great 
shock  to  your  mother  and  myself,  Peter/'  he  said. 

Peter* sighed.    "Yes,  sir,"  he  said  dutifully. 

"I  cannot  afford  to  support  you,  Peter,"  his 
father1  went  on  solemnly,  "and  I  would  not  if  I 
could.  I  don't  believe  in  this  helter  skelter  mar 
riage  business." 

"We  haven't  expected  anyone  to  help  us." 
Peter  said. 

"Certainly  you're  not  fool  enough  to  think 
that  you  can  live  on  what  you're  making?"  • 

"No.  But  Joan  will  work,  too.  Between  us  we 
will  make  enough.  We  have  the  same  ideas  about 
that  .  .  .  and  other  things.  That's  why  we're 
marrying." 

"Do  you  mean  that  this  young  lady  has  gone 
crazy  over  babies,  too?" 

"It's  not  crazy,  sir,"  Peter  said  hotly.  "We 
believe  that  a  man  and  a  woman  are  here  on  earth 
only  to  marry  and  work  and  breed  children,  and 
that's  the  only  way  people  can  be  happy  and  do 
any  good  and  be  of  use  to  the  country  and  them 
selves.  There's  nothing  crazy  about  that,  is 
there?" 

'     "And  what  if  yon  have  a  baby  on  your  few 
dollars  a  week?" 

'  *  We  sha  'n  't  have  any  until  we  're  ready, ' '  Peter 
said  coldly. 


260  PETER    KINDRED 

His  father  grunted.  "Children  will  happen, 
you  know  .  .  .  can't  be  helped. " 

"Not  the  way  we  expect  to  live,  sir/'  Peter 
said. 

"Humph,  And  how  do  you  expect  to  live,  may 
I  askT" 

"Decently/'  Peter  said  angrily,  "until  we're 
ready  to  have  children.  We're  not  marrying  to 
.  .  .-to  .  .  .  " 

"Oh,"  said  his  father.  He  was  silent  for  a  mo 
ment.  "You  are  going  to  live  ...  as  though  you 
weren't  married  until  you  can  have  children." 

As  Peter  did  not  answer,  he  went  on  after  a  bit. 
"You  expect  to  be  able  to  live  like  a  ...  to  live 
that  way  as  long  as  you  please!" 
"Certainly,"  Peter  said. 

His  father  sighed.  "All  fools  aren't  dead  yet," 
he  said  grimly. 

Peter  was  furious.  "It  is  a  matter,"  he  said 
icily,  "that  concerns  only  me  and  Joan." 

"Well  ...  we  won't  discuss  it.  Now  under 
stand  me!  I  sha'n't  forbid  you  to  marry.  But 
you  may  expect  no  help  from  me.  And  I  '11  not  go 
to  any  expense  toward  the  wedding.  That  is  their 
affair." 

"There'll  be  no  wedding,  sir." 
"What?" 

"Our  marriage  is  a  matter  of  importance  only 
to  the  state.  We'll  make  a  contract  to  care  for 
our  children,  and  obey  the  marriage  laws.  That's 
all." 


PETER   KINDRED  261 

His  father  gasped.  "You  have  the  Impudence 
to  say  this  to  my  face?"  he  cried.  Then  he  grew 
quiet  and  repressed.  "And  does  the  young  lady 
agree  to  all  this  folderol,  too?" 

"We've  gone  over  it  quite  thoroughly.  There's 
no  reason  why  marriage  should  be  made  a  vaude 
ville  act." 

Mr.  Kindred  grew  grim  and  his  eyes  sparkled, 
but  he  controlled  his  voice. 

"I  sha'n't  talk  to  you  any  more,  Peter,"  he 
said.  "If  you  want  to  make  a  laughing  stock  of 
yourself,  go  ahead.  If  you  want  to  break  your 
mother's  heart,  go  ahead.  I  don't  care;  I'm 
through;  I  wash  my  hands  of  you.  It's  what  I 
might  have  expected,  with  these  damned  new 
fangled  ideas  in  the  colleges.  Go  on — go  on — get 
out.  I  'm  through. ' ' 

His  mother,  however,  first  refused  to  believe  that 
Peter  could  have  any  such  terrible  ideas  about 
weddings,  and  then  became  excited  and  wept. 

"Peter,  how  can  you  do  such  a  thing?"  she  cried 
passionately.  "It  isn't  right,  dear,  it  isn't  right; 
it's  sacrilege.  They  can't  be  nice  people  to  allow 
it,  I'm  sure  they're  not  nice  people.  Why,  Peter — 
think,  Peter,  it  will  hang  over  your  head  all  your 
life,  you'll  be  miserable,  you  won't  be  really  mar 
ried,  it'll  be  wrath  and  shame.  .  .  .  Oh,  this  is 
terrible,  terrible!" 

She  carried  on  at  a  great  rate,  but  there  was 
no  help  for  it;  Peter  would  not  even  discuss  the 
matter.  So  she  grew  subdued  after  a  while,  and 


262  PETER    KINDRED 

went  about  looking  consciously  hurt  and  tearful. 

Thereafter  dinner  was  eaten  in  silence  and  em 
barrassment,  more  marked  for  the  jovial  intrusion 
of  one  Eddie,  a  friend  and  admirer  of  Edith.  He 
was  a  large  man,  with  soft  features  and  watery 
blue  eyes ;  his  hair  was  swept  back  from  his  head 
in  a  greased  pompadour.  He  smiled  continually 
and  ate  swiftly  and  noisily,  with  scant  courtesy; 
he  talked  in  a  cocksure,  impudent  voice,  with  a 
slight  nasal  twang. 

"I  guess  that  dance  the  other  night  was  some 
dance/'  he  said  to  Edith.  He  turned  to  her 
mother.  "You  oughta  seen  Edie,  Mrs.  Kindred; 
she  was  the  queen  of  the  ball,  all  right." 

And  so  he  prattled  on  about  dances  and  the 
atres  and  people,  giving  his  opinions  on  every 
thing.  He  turned  finally  to  Peter. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "how  goes  the  advertising! 
It 's  a  great  little  game,  I  tell  you.  I  know ;  I'm  an 
advertising  man  myself." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  worked  in  a  printing 
shop  and  called  on  minor  druggists  and  moving 
picture  theater  proprietors  who  might  want  small 
pamphlets  prepared  for  them.  He  had  a  large 
acquaintance  among  soda  clerks. 

Peter  said  nothing  to  Joan  about  the  manner 
in  which  his  family  had  accepted  his  announce 
ment,  other  than  to  tell  her  generally  that  they 
had  been  very  much  upset,  but  that  they  had  taken 
the  matter  well  enough  finally;  he  thought  that 

I 


PETER    KINDRED  263 

they  would  be  more  pleasant  about  it  as  they  grew 
more  used  to  it,  and  saw  no  gain  in  worrying 
Joan  and  her  parents  unnecessarily.  So  Joan  pre 
pared  to  come  to  New  York  within  a  fortnight,  and 
wrote  jubilantly  of  things  in  her  own  calm  life. 

But  Don  came  to  New  York  first,  from  the 
west,  sunburned  and  energetic.  His  telephone 
message  caught  Peter  half-way  through  his  break 
fast,  and  Peter  shouted  with,  excitement  to  hear 
his  voice.  They  met  at  noon,  in  the  wide,  low 
lobby  of  the  Prince  George,  and  exchanged  a 
mighty  handclasp,  their  eyes  laughing  deeply, 
contentedly  at  each  other,  out  of  their  grave  faces. 

"Oh,  Jingoes!"  Peter  said  gruffly,  "it's  good  to 
see  you  again,  you  old  crocodile  I" 

Later,  in  a  corner  of  the  dining  room,  they 
looked  at  each  other  curiously  and  smiled  half- 
eagerly,  half-shyly,  as  men  smile  at  one  another 
after  long  absences. 

"  Peter, "  Don  asked  earnestly,  "how  are  you 
hitting  things?" 

"Well  enough,  Don." 

"Great.  .  .  .  Tell  me — how  do  you  feel  about 
things  .  .  .  the  work?" 

"It's  good  stuff.  But  you  get  an  awfully  funny 
idea  of  economics.  Everybody  in  the  world  seems 
to  be  a  salesman.  There  doesn't  seem  to  be  any 
thing  anywhere  except  salesmen.  And  they're  all 
advertising  experts." 


CHAPTER   X 

T)ETER  came  into  the  office  with  such  a  helpless 
•*•  and  self-conscious  smile  quavering  about  his 
mouth  that  the  space  buyer  asked  him  jovially  if 
he  were  to  be  married  that  day.  Although  there 
was  nothing  remarkably  merry  in  the  question, 
Peter  burst  out  laughing  at  it,  and  sat  at  his  desk 
with  a  deeper  and  a  more  visible  smile,  one  he 
could  not  get  rid  of.  The  next  morning  Joan  was 
coming. 

And  this,  therefore,  was  her  last  day  in  Boston. 
He  could  not  keep  his  eyes  away  from  the  broad 
window  facing  the  north ;  beyond  that  low  horizon 
haze  of  very  distant  roofs,  and  on  beyond  a  bit, 
Joan  was  preparing  for  her  trip,  packing,  bidding 
folk  and  places  good-bye,  thinking  of  Peter,  and 
looking  probably  to  the  south,  toward  that  win 
dow.  Or  perhaps  she  was  shopping,  walking 
down  Boylston,  past  the  Common,  past  Arlington 
Street  where  the  cars  climb  up  from  the  tunnel  to 
Boylston  Street,  and  stop  at  the  edge*of  the  park, 
opposite  the  trees  and  the  warm  green  grass  and 

264 


PETER   KINDRED  265 

the  lake  with  the  swans  on  it.  That  would  be 
walking  south,  and  so  she  would  be  looking  toward 
his  window  too.  Although  his  mind  was  eager 
and  sharpened  for  work,  all  morning  long  he 
watched  the  clouds  pile  up  in  the  north,  above  the 
end  of  the  city,  and  disappear. 

The  day  passed  in  a  sort  of  happy  bewilder 
ment,  untroubled  and  patient  waiting.  The  city 
seemed  to  Peter  to  be  expecting  her  also ;  every 
thing  would  be  entirely  different  when  she  had 
come,  made  whole  and  intelligible.  Only  his  pa 
rents  threw  a  shadow  on  the  day,  but  he  put  them 
resolutely  from  his  mind ;  he  hoped  for  some  vague 
change  in  them  as  well. 

After  dinner  that  night  he  was  restless,  and 
since  he  could  not  be  with  Don  he  wandered  idly 
about  the  streets,  grateful  for  the  cooler  wind,  the 
darkness,  the  coming  and  going  of  people,  faces 
moving  past  him,  the  lighted  shops  and  the  street 
lights,  the  impetuous,  half-phantomlike  city  at 
night.  "With  only  a  handful  of  hours  between  him 
self  and  Joan  he  became  nervous  and  impatient, 
and  could  hardly  get  himself  home  to  bed,  as 
though,  somehow,  the  time  would  pass  the  quicker 
if  he  were  awake  watching  it. 

In  the  morning  before  breakfast  he  swept  under 
the  still  city  in  the  deserted  subway,  and  coming 
swiftly  up  the  stairs  into  the  mighty  and  reverber 
ant  terminal,  stood  almost  alone  beneath  the  lofty 
curved  roof,  breathless  and  elate  before  the  closed 
gates  where  Joan's  train  would  come,  some  twenty 


266  PETER    KINDRED 

minntes  before  her  train  was  due.  He  stood  ex 
pectant  for  five  minutes,  and  then  there  was  still 
a  quarter-hour  left  him;  he  paced  up  and  down 
slowly  across  the  broad  and  sibilant  floor,  looking 
curiously  at  the  few  figures  in  the  station :  a  pretty 
mistress  with  earrings,  thoughtful  and  worried,  a 
haunted  Jew  with  curly  hair  waiting  for  his  wife, 
perhaps,  an  old  nurse  and  two  slim,  eager  chil 
dren.  A  guard  in  gray  arranged  a  line  of  rope 
before  one  gate ;  Peter  heard  a  loud  voice  crying 
that  on  that  track  the  Boston  train  would  be  com 
ing.  He  took  his  place  so  that  he  could  see  the 
empty  track  below,  and  the  shadowed  platform. 
Red-capped  negro  porters  went  through  the  gate 
talking  in  low  voices  and  down  the  track  and 
along  the  platform.  A  yellow  flaming  light  grew 
through  the  gloom  of  the  yards  and  swung  on 
toward  them,  the  low  dun  train  creeping  across 
clicking  switches,  nosing  its  way  slowly  in  along 
the  platform.  It  came  to  a  stop,  the  platform  be 
came  dotted  and  then  filled  with  people,  hurrying 
up  the  incline  to  the  gate;  a  few  men  went  by 
swiftly;  one  stopped  and  caught  the  mistress  with 
the  earrings  in  a  great  hug,  and  they  turned  and 
went  out  together,  laughing  and  talking.  People 
crowded  the  gateway,  surged  through  and  passed, 
and  then  there  was  Joan.  But  even  as  she  dropped 
her  bag  and  turned  toward  him,  shyness  overcame 
them  both,  and  after  the  smallest  and  most  imper 
sonal  of  kisses,  they  walked  silently,  with  burning 
cheeks,  across  the  station. 


PETER   KINDRED  267 

Peter  *s  heart  had  stopped  in  his  body  from  ut 
ter,  embarrassed  and  inarticulate  happiness;  he 
looked  at  Joan,  smiling  eagerly,  and  she,  meeting 
his  eyes,  put  her  slim  hands  to  her  cheeks  to  hide 
the  red  glowing  there.  With  a  low  laugh  he  took 
her  arm  and  pressed  her  closer  to  him  as  they 
walked.  He  became  articulate. 

"  Jinks,"  he  said. 

But  once  in  the  subway  they  both  lost  all  shy 
ness,  and  each  brimmed  over  with  things  that 
needed  to  be  said  at  once,  but  in  the  shriek  and 
clatter  they  must  needs  go  unsaid,  for  all  their 
necessity.  So  Peter  and  Joan  did  little  more  than 
smile  at  one  another,  and  look  and  look. 

The  family  waited  for  their  arrival  in  such  ef 
fective  regalia  as  they  could  commandeer  for  the 
occasion,  taffeta  and  ruffles,  starch' and  Mr.  Kin 
dred's  very  best  business  suit.  Whatever  of  fear 
Peter  may  have  had  was  speedily  put  at  rest.  As 
they  came  through  the  door  his  mother  sailed 
majestically  into  the  hall  and  bore  down  on  them, 
beaming. 

"Mother,"  Peter- said,  "this  is  Joan." 

Mrs.  Kindred  bustled  forward  as  though  she 
expected  to  be  kissed,  but  Joan  shook  hands  with 
her  gravely.  They  went  back  to  the  parlor,  where 
his*  father  and  Edith  were  standing  awkwardly, 
hardly  knowing  whether  to  come  forward  or  to 
stay  where  they  were,  to  be  sitting  or  standing. 
Joan  went  directly  to  Mr.  Kindred  and  shook 
hands  with  him. 


268  PETER    KINDRED 

"How  do  you  do?"  she  said.  He  bustled  a 
little,  too,  and  smiled  and  nodded,  but  could  think 
of  nothing  to  say,  so  cleared  his  throat  and  pulled 
at  his  collar.  In  turn,  Edith  greeted  Joan  half- 
shyly  and  clumsily,  offering  her  a  limp  hand ;  she 
would  have  understood  it  better  if  Joan  had  not 
been  so  grave  and  gracious  and  unembarrassed. 

"Now,  then,"  said  Peter's  mother  to  Joan, 
"come  right  with  me,  and  I'll  show  you  where 
to  put  your  things,  and  you  can  make  yourself 
right  at  home."  She  went  out,  and  took  Joan 
with  her,  leaving  Peter  and  his  father  and  sister 
standing  together  like  so  many  sheep.  Peter  and 
his  father  stared  at  each  other,  and  then  the  older 
man  cleared  his  throat  again  and  put  his  hands 
behind  his  back  and  rocked  up  and  down  on  his 
toes.  Edith  played  nervously  with  a  book,  and 
kept  her  eyes  down.  When  Peter's  eyes  and  his 
father's  had  grown  as  round  as  two  saucepans 
from  staring  at  each  other,  Mrs.  Kindred  brought 
Joan  back,  and  the  five  of  them  went  in  to  break 
fast. 

He  had  never  been  so  purely  exuberant  as  he 
was  that  day  at  the  office,  with  Joan  in  New  York 
at  last.  It  made  a  difference,  remarkably.  .  .  . 
There  had  never  been  anything  like  it.  The  city 
glittered  for  him  like  wine  in  the  sun;  her  pres 
ence  was  manifest  in  every  lout  who  hurried  up 
and  down  the  streets.  She  was  there,  she  was  in 
hailing  distance,  she  would  be  there  at  evening,  in 
his  own  home ;  the  day  spent  away  from  her  was 


PETER   KINDRED  269 

exquisite  with  the  sure  thought  of  her  at  its  close. 
He  had  no  appetite  at  noon;  he  wanted  to  tele 
phone  to  her,  but  it  was  more  pleasant  to  deny 
himself  that.  At  night  he  came  home  unaware  of 
the  slow,  struggling  crowds,  unaware  of  anything' 
save  the  lordliness  of  his  life,  washed  clean  in 
happiness. 

His  mother  met  him  at  the  door  and  gave  him 
an  extra  fond  kiss  and  a  hug.  Edith  came  out  of 
her  room  and  whispered  to  him. 

"She's  perfectly  sweet,"  said  Edith. 

But  Joan  laughed  when  she  saw  Peter,  and  gave 
him  her  hand,  which  he  held  a  while,  immeasur 
ably  happy.  And  after  dinner  Joan  put  on  a 
little  blue  hat,  and  she  and  Peter  went  out  to 
gether,  to  walk  up  and  down  Eiverside,  arm  in 
arm,  and  all  the  music  in  the  world  stole  with  the 
night  into  Peter's  body  and  swept  through  him, 
and  the  Drive,  the  lamps,  the  wind  and  the  dark 
turned  into  music,  too,  and  stirred  him  and 
troubled  him  with  the  very  fierceness  and  insist 
ence  of  his  content. 

"Peter,"  Joan  said  at  length,  "I  told  your 
mother  that  we'd  not  be  married  by  contract. 
After  all,  dear,  it  doesn't  matter,  and  she  was 
very,  very  much  upset  at  the  thought  of  it. 
So  we  shall  go  simply  before  a  Justice  of  the 
Peace." 

'But  mother  wants  a  regular,  terrible  wedding, 
Joan." 

"I  know,  but  that's  impossible.     I'll  not  be 


270  PETER    KINDRED 

gaped  at  when  I'm  married.  So  it's  settled, 
dear." 

But  somehow  Peter  disliked  the  thought  of  a 
Justice  of  the  Peace.  It  was  a  small  dislike,  and 
he  frowned  it  down  at  once. 

However,  it  would  do ;  apparently  it  saved  his 
mother  from  succumbing  beneath  the  black  shame 
of  a  contract  marriage,  and  as  Joan  said,  the 
principle  was  too  unimportant  a  one  to  fight 
about;  it  would  be  enough  to  be  married  quietly, 
before  their  parents.  From  this,  the  Kindreds 
managed  to  derive  some  satisfaction,  and  Mrs. 
Kindred  almost  grew  to  believe  that  there  might 
be  something  pleasantly  exclusive  about  a  wed 
ding  to  which  none  of  her  friends,  however  inti 
mate,  could  be  invited. 

The  days  went  by  swiftly,  and  much  was  done 
and  little  spoken.  Peter's  father  had  taken  a 
solid  liking  to  Joan,  and  Edith  was  fairly  well 
thrilled  at  the  imminence  of  a  wedding.  As  for 
Peter's  mother,  she  grew  visibly  in  pleasure, 
pleasure  at  the  admiration  of  her  friends  for  Joan, 
pleasure  at  the  shopping  to  be  done,  the  china,  the 
linen,  the  modest  furniture,  and  the  tiny  flat  it 
self,  perched  on  the  fourth  floor  of  a  model  tene 
ment  by  the  East  River.  It  was  in  the  very  heart 
of  the  slums;  that  had  bothered  her  fearfully  at 
first,  but  Mr.  Kindred  had  stood  up  manfully 
against  her;  Peter  could  afford  no  more  certainly; 
it  was  clean  and  cheerful;  the  slums  be  ...  be 
.  .  .  who  was  Peter  to  be  too  good  for  the  slums  f 


PETER   KINDRED  271 

And  when  she  saw  the  well-built  tenement,  and 
the  tiny  flat  itself,  the  three  little  rooms,  shining 
with  sun  and  cleanliness,  she  became  reconciled 
and  grew  cheerful  and  hopeful  and  told  her  friends 
defiantly  that  she  'd  like  nothing  better  than  to  live 
there  herself. 

But  as  for  Peter,  he  lived  in  a  daze  of  content 
ment,  and  loved  everything,  from  Edith  to  the 
tiniest  cup  with  blue  flowers  painted  on  it  and 
the  remarkable  yellow  vase  an  aunt  gave  as  a 
wedding  present. 

One  Sunday  they  spent  in  the  little  flat,  un 
packing  china  and  silver — the  little  they  had — 
and  linen.  They  cooked  their  lunch  on  the  great 
stove  in  the  main  room;  Joan  cooked,  wonder 
fully  well,  Peter  thought,  but  he  could  hardly  eat 
for  watching  her.  She  came  up  behind  him 
softly,  and  laid  her  hand  along  his  cheek. 

' '  Oh,  Peter, ' '  she  cried,  < '  won 't  it  be  f un ! "  He 
caught  her  hand  and  kissed  it.  The  voices  of  in 
numerable  children  mingled  with  the  noises  of  the 
street;  the  windows,  broad,  from  ceiling  to  floor, 
were  yellow  with  the  sun  of  early  afternoon. 

At  evening  they  walked  home  together,  through 
crowded  streets,  past  dark-doored  and  unpleasant 
tenements,  under  the  shrill  elevated  roads  of  Sec 
ond  and  Third  Avenues,  through  the  streets  grown 
suddenly  quiet  now  and  dignified,  past  brown- 
stone  houses,  down  the  white  grandeur  of  Fifth 
Avenue  in  the  dusk,  and  across  the  wide  twilight 
of  the  Park.  To  the  south,  Fifty-ninth  Street 


272  PETER    KINDRED 

towered  against  the  night,  a  dim  and  lofty  crest  of 
roof-tops  and  lights  half  way  to  heaven ;  and  there 
too  glittered  the  thousand  windows  of  the  Plaza 
like  a  great  jewel  in  the  dusk  against  the  evening 
sky.  Courage  swelled  through  Peter  like  a  gale ; 
it  was  his  city,  the  beautiful,  the  mighty,  his  to 
know,  to  love  and  to  conquer,  from  the  slums 
behind  him  in  the  east  to  those  lights  upon  the 
south.  And  again  he  was  oppressed  with  a  sense 
of  many  folk,  and  the  longing  to  be  known  and  to 
be  great  among  them. 

Through  all  the  excitement  preparatory  to  the 
wedding  Joan  moved  untroubled  and  precise, 
capable  and  delightful.  After  one  day,  Mrs.  Kin 
dred  surrendered  to  her  entirely,  and  even  took  a 
pleasure  in  that,  and  boasted  of  it.  Together 
they  shopped  and  unpacked  bundles  in  the  little 
tenement  and  sewed  and  cleaned  and  arranged  and 
put  things  away.  Peter,  in  his  office,  fell  to  his 
work  with  a  heart  as  light  as  foam;  at  night  the 
dinner  table  was  merry  with  unusual  talk  and 
Mr.  Kindred,  smiling  and  important,  carved  the 
roasts  and  kept  the  best  bits  for  Joan.  And  as 
Joan  had  the  consummate  tact  upon  one  occasion 
to  find  something  about  the  sleek  Eddie  to  admire, 
Edith,  was  not  jealous  of  her;  at  least,  not  very 
much.  But  Peter  would  forget  to  eat  for  looking 
at  her,  he  was  so  happy.  After  dinner  Peter  and 
Joan  would  go  out ;  once  to  a  picture  theater,  but 
Joan  did  not  oare  for  that,  she  preferred  to  be 
out  walking,  talking  and  keeping  silence,  or  sit- 


PETER   KINDRED  273 

ting  by  the  Drive,  watching  the  river.  Sometimes 
Don  called  for  them,  or  they  met  him  and  the 
three  of  them  walked  together,  Joan  between  the 
two  men,  an  arm  for  each.  The  Drive  fascinated 
her,  the  smooth,  shadowy  road,  the  quiet,  gleam 
ing  river  below,  the  distant  sounds  of  freight 
trains  and  ships,  the  trees,  the  motors,  but  most 
of  all  the  looming  apartments  facing  the  west.  It 
was  almost  like  old  days  to  be  together;  Helen 
was  lacking,  but  she  would  come  later. 

Then  Joan's  parents  came  down  from  Boston, 
and  the  curious  confusion  of  meeting  took  place 
all  over  again.  But  Joan's  mother  and  father 
were  kindly  people,  and  expected  little;  the  Kin 
dreds  were  ready  to  receive  them  with  a  touch  of 
reverence,  although  Peter's  father  held  the  very, 
very  private  opinion  that  he  was  as  good  as  the 
next  one,  himself.  But  it  was  very  private  in 
deed,  and  so  the  meeting  went  off  well  enough. 

The  night  before  the  wedding  Joan  and  Peter 
and  Don  walked  a  long  way  out  along  the  Drive, 
and  watched  the  moon  go  down  below  the  Pali 
sades.  They  walked  home  slowly,  it  was  late  and 
dark  and  silent  at  the  edge  of  the  city.  The  night 
crept  into  Don  and  moved  him  to  unaccustomed 
feeling. 

"You  two,"  he  said,  "are  very  nearly  all  I 
have.  I  don't  want  any  more."  He  groped  for 
"words  as  they  walked  on.  "I  ...  I  hope  -  .  .  it 
means  all  the  world  to  me  to  have  things  go  right 
with  you,  old  people."  He  was  silent,  and  Peter 


274  PETER    KINDRED 

smiled  at  Joan  and  laid  his  arm  across  Don's 
shoulders. 

" Doesn't  Helen  count  at  all?"  Joan  asked,  but 
Don  did  not  answer. 

The  next  day,  before  their  parents,  they  were 
married.  Joan  took  the  matter  serenely  but 
Peter  felt  young  to  have  his  father  watching  him, 
and  his  mother  cried.  When  Joan  had  said  her 
yes  in  a  voice  that  trembled  ever  so  slightly  and 
when  he  too  had  said  his  yes,  it  seemed  to  him 
that  a  great  organ  should  have  answered,  pealing 
through  the  room.  The  lack  of  it  was  almost  awk 
ward,  as  though  a  ghostlike  director  had  waved  his 
baton  and  no  music  had  sounded  where  there 
should  have  been  music.  Behind  him  his  mother 
cried  a  little.  And  when  at  last  he  was  pronounced 
Joan's  husband  and  she  his  wife,  a  great  rush  of 
tenderness  and  holiness  flooded  him  and  he  would 
gladly  have  winked  the  tears  from  his  eyes,  but 
that  he  saw  his  father  bustling  forward,  and  then 
there  were  no  tears  to  wink. 

There  followed  a  wedding  luncheon;  exuber 
antly  merry,  to  which  Don  came  with  a  huge  box 
of  roses  for  Joan,  and  then  the  three  friends 
walked  across  the  Park  to  their  tenement.  There 
Don  left  the  man  and  his  wife,  Peter  and  Joan 
Kindred,  to  their  tiny  home,  and  walked  slowly 
and  alone  back  over  the  way  they  had  come.  Dusk 
drifted  across  the  city  from  the  east,  the  voices 
grew  faint,  the  sounds  died  away.  In  their  tene 
ment  the  stove  burned  warm  and  bright,  and  four 


PETER   KINDRED  275 

chops  sizzled  in  a  low  pan ;  a  pungent  and  pleas 
ant  smell  of  cooking  filled  the  room.  Joan  moved 
happily  about,  and  Peter  sat  sprawled  in  a  chair 
watching  her.  It  was  their  home,  these  three 
rooms,  their  own  home,  its  ruddy  space  to  hold 
them  close  against  all  the  world.  There  they  would 
be  when  the  gleaming  dishes  were  washed  and 
put  away,  and  there  they  would  be  the  whole  night 
long ;  when  dawn  broke  in  the  east  they  would  be 
there.  And  there  Peter  would  come  ever  after 
and  find  Joan  forever  and  ever  ...  let  no  man 
put  asunder.  .  .  . 

From  above  the  stove,  the  firelight  a-glint  on 
her  hair,  she  smiled  at  him  and  her  slim  fingers 
blew  him  a  kiss.  He  rose  and  peered  in  at  the 
two  little  side  rooms;  in  one  the  two  plain  beds 
and  the  dresser,  in  the  other  a  couch,  a  chair,  a 
bookcase.  It  seemed  to  him  that  they  welcomed 
him  merrily.  He  tiptoed  across  the  room  to  where 
Joan  stood  by  the  stove,  and  standing  beside  her 
he  prodded  a  chop  inquisitively  with  a  fork. 
"Joan,"  he  said  soberly,  "we're  married." 
"Peter,"  Joan  said,  "you  watch  these  chops, 
and  I'll  set  the  table.  But  be  very  careful,  dear, 
for  chops  are  fearfully,  fearfully  expensive  now." 

"You  dear,  silly  people,"  Helen  cried,  after  she 
had  with  extravagant  delight  explored  the  corners 
and  the  closets  of  the  tenement,  and  curling  her 
self  up  on  the  couch,  had  realized  suddenly  that 
Joan  was  really  married,  and  the  four  of  them 


276  PETER    KINDRED 

were  together  again,  "why  on  earth  didn't  you 
have  your  wedding  in  a  church,  all  alone?" 

"Phaugh!"  Joan  exclaimed,  "and  have  a  lot  of 
unreality  tacked  on  to  it,  and  things  we  don't 
believe  in?" 

"But  the  music,  Joan,  and  the  quiet.  Of 
course  a  contract  is  an  idea,  a  principle, — but  what 
on  earth  is  a  Justice  of  the  Peace?" 

"We  didn't  want  music,  Helen." 

"It's  so  much  more  beautiful,  though." 

Here  Don  gave  voice  to  a  sound  resembling  a 
roar,  and  Helen  bridled  up  at  once. 

"That's  all  very  well,"  she  said,  "but  marriage 
is  a  beautiful  thing,  and  it  ought  to  be  made  as 
beautiful  as  it  can,  and  you  needn't  think  you 
can  sit  there  and  laugh,  Don  Mark,  because  it's 
something  that  ought  to  go  down  through  life  as 
the  most  splendid  and  holy  ..." 

At  that  point  her  voice  was  buried  under  the 
combined  scorn  of  Don  and  Joan,  but  Peter  sat 
silent ;  indeed  he  sympathized  with  Helen  and  felt 
that  she  was  right.  He  too  would  have  liked 
music ;  his  emotional  being,  deeply  stirred  at  his 
marriage,  had  yet  craved'  a  deeper  stirring,  a 
greater  beating  of  wings,  a  loftier  soaring  beyond 
the  limits  of  his  understanding,  beyond  the  limits 
of  his  own  power,  to  tremble  upon  ineffable 
things.  Although  his  marriage  had  been  splen 
did,  it  had  not  been  beautiful,  and  even  then  he 
had  felt  the  lack  of  music  to  sweep  his  spirit  up 
beyond  the  power  of  his  body  to  hold  it.  Helen, 


PETER    KINDRED  277 

though  she  was  downed,  was  entirely  right;  a 
Justice  of  the  Peace  was  exceedingly  Carverian, 
but  very  barren  after  all.  And  Peter  wondered 
if  Carverian  barrenness  were  so  tremendously 
essential.  But  that  sounded  like  treason. 

To  Peter  it  was  a  recurrent  miracle  to  wake 
each  morning  and  find  Joan  sleeping  in  her  prim 
white  bed  beside  his ;  to  hurry  to  the  cubicle  they 
called  the  den  and  there  to  dress,  hopeful  that  he 
would  be  able  to  have  breakfast  ready  for  her. 
But  she  was  always  dressed  first,  and  the  kettle 
was  singing  and  bubbling  on  the  stove  when  he 
was  ready.  Breakfast  in  the  sunny  room  was 
like  a  quiet  benediction  before  the  full  sweep  of 
the  day.  Then  he  would  go  grandly  out  through 
the  gateway  of  the  tenements,  striding  along  very 
manfully  to  work,  with  a  fine  spirit  to  whistle  in 
his  mind.  But  once  in  the  office  it  was  no  easy 
matter  to  concentrate  upon  the  business  in  hand, 
with  his  thoughts  the  morning  long  moving  with 
Joan  about  the  three  sunny  rooms,  washing  and 
tidying,  and  then  across  the  streets  of  the  city  with 
her  upon  an  earnest  quest  for  work.  For  Joan 
must  find  a  place  for  herself  very  soon,  or  their 
small  capital  would  dwindle  to  nothing. 

At  noon  she  called  for  him,  and  they  went  out 
together  along  the  broad,  crowded,  tumbled  ave 
nue,  among  a  rush  of  clerks  and  stenographers 
and  factory  girls,  and  lunched  together  in  a  large 
bakery  where  white-aproned  waitresses  ran  inde 
pendently  and  impersonally  about.  The  room  was 


278  PETER    KINDRED 

gloomy  and  close,  and  smelled  of  cheap  food,  the 
narrow  brown  tables  were  crowded  with  an  ill- 
favored  and  fugitive  rabble,  eating  from  thick, 
heavy  crockery.  They  could  do  no  more  than 
smile  at  one  another  there,  among  the  people,  and 
through  the  noise  and  the  clatter  of  eating.  Yet  it 
was  worth  all  manner  of  things  to  be  together  at 
all.  Then  they  walked  up  and  down  Fifth  Avenue 
in  the  sun,  and  talked  of  Joan,  of  where  she  had 
been  and  what  she  had  done  and  what  she  would 
be  doing,  and  watched  the  myriad  motors  stream 
slowly  past  them,  and  the  well-groomed,  hurrying 
women  intent  upon  their  shopping.  Or  they 
walked  along  the  brown-stone  dignity  of  Madison 
Avenue,  past  the  waiting  motors  drawn  up  at  the 
curb,  until  it  was  time  for  Peter  to  be  back  in  his 
office  again. 

And  finally  he  would  come  home  through  the 
blue  evening  among  the  dull,  impersonal  crowds, 
out  of  the  hurry,  the  heat,  the  jangled  noises  and 
the  swiftness  of  people,  into  the  three  little  rooms 
and  the  night  outside,  the  comfortable  chair  and 
Joan,  the  news  of  her  day,  and  the  beloved  sight 
of  her  again.  But  there  was  cooking  to  be  done 
then,  and  later  dishes  to  be  washed,  a  thin  dis 
cordance  in  the  peacefulness  of  home-coming.  It 
would  be  pleasanter  just  to  sit  and  talk.  Yet  it 
was  jolly  enough  to  putter  away  at  china  and  cut 
up  vegetables  and  wipe  off  silver  with  Joan  there, 
moving  about  so  lightly  and  precisely.  In  the  bare 
stillness  of  the  close  rooms  they  seemed  to  be 


PETER   KINDRED  279 

shut  entirely  away  by  themselves ;  New  York  was 
like  some  other  city,  far  to  the  west.  They 
were  off  the  track  of  familiar  routes ;  their  friends 
and  Peter's  family  lived  somewhere  distantly. 
Peter  was  glad  that  he  was  so  far  from  his  fam 
ily.  They  had  all  come  over  the  first  Sunday, 
moving-  like  a  silent  caravan  through  the  slums, 
depressed  by  the  dirty  streets  and  the  innumer 
able  shouting  children,  and  then  they  had  sat 
crowded  and  silent  in  the  tenement,  father  and 
mother,  Edith  and  Eddie,  and  even  the  irrepres 
sible  Eddie,  after  a  few  wilted  remarks,  was  sub 
dued.  When  they  had  gone,  Joan  had  smiled  at 
Peter  pathetically  and  had  suggested  that  the  two 
of  them  go  out  for  a  breath  of  air,  but  they  hardly 
knew  where  to  go,  for  there  was  no  quiet  any 
where  near  by,  but  roaring  streets  and  avenues. 
And  there  was  supper  to  get. 

Very  often  Don  and  Helen  came  to  supper,  with 
large  white  paper  bags,  chicken,  pickles,  bread, 
what  not,  for  Joan  had  insisted  that  she  could  not 
possibly  afford  to  feed  them  whenever  they  came, 
and  so  they  always  brought  a  tribute  of  some 
sort,  and  Helen  stole  jams  and  jellies  from  her 
mother's  big  pantry,  and  carried  them  hidden  in 
her  muff.  But  the  four  of  them  managed  to  rob 
the  cooking  of  its  seriousness,  and  to  make  ridicu 
lous  the  drying  of  plates,  and  that  was  always  a 
great  relief  to  Peter. 

Indeed,  it  seemed  as  though  they  brought  Cam 
bridge  with  them  to  the  slums,  and  olden  uncon- 


280  PETER    KINDRED 

corn  and  blitheness,  and  with  the  lamps  lighted 
and  the  dinner  cooking  it  was  hard  to  believe  that 
the  swift  gray  river  that  flowed  narrowly  by  the 
end  of  the  street  was  not  the  Charles  after  all. 

And  then  one  evening  Joan  came  home  with  a 
small  bottle  of  very  bad  red  wine  and  great  news. 
She  put  the  wine  triumphantly  down  on  the  table, 
and  the  two  of  them  stood  back  to  look  at  it. 

" Peter,  dear,"  Joan  said  gravely,  "you're  not 
to  get  drunk. " 

On  the  morrow  she  would  become  officially  no 
less  a  personage  than  the  secretary  of  the  busi 
ness  manager  of  a  certain  great  magazine.  Peter 
was  astounded  at  such  good  fortune,  but  Joan  took 
it  quite  as  a  matter  of  course. 

"But,  Peter,"  she  said,  "why  not?" 

"However  did  you  do  it?"  he  asked  in  amaze 
ment. 

'  '  I  think  he  was  glad  to  get  me.  He  should  have 
been,"  Joan  said  seriously. 

Solemnly  they  filled  two  glasses  with  the  bitter 
red  wine,  and  clinked  them  together.  In  high 
spirits  they  toasted  Joan's  unexpected  salary. 
Indeed,  they  were  to  be  fabulously  wealthy  .  .  . 
together  they  had  thirty  dollars  a  week.  It  was  a 
great  deal,  and  it  seemed  rather  as  though  life 
were  willing  soon  to  give  them  all  they  asked,  and 
that  was  little  enough. 

"Joan,"  said  Peter,  "we  shall  need  someone 
now  to  look  after  us  a  bit." 

"Yes,  I  suppose  we  shall.    Though  I  might  be 


PETER    KINDRED  281 

able  to  do  everything.  Still,  I  think  it  would  be  a 
good  thing  to  have  a  woman  to  clean  our  dishes 
after  breakfast  and  to  cook  our  supper. " 

They  found  a  Mrs.  Mulligan  the  next  day,  a 
large  lady  with  gray  hair  and  one  eye.  To  her 
they  entrusted  their  flat,  and  went  gloriously  off 
to  work  the  morning  after. 

Peter  was  home  first  that  evening.  As  he  en 
tered  the  door,  a  fearful  odor  of  burning  fright 
ened  him.  With  trembling  fingers  he  switched  on 
the  light. 

The  gas  stove  was  going  merrily,  and  on  it 
glowed  a  frying-pan  with  the  charred  remains  of 
what  had  been  once  some  sort  of  vegetable.  The 
table  was  set,  and  on  a  platter  lay  four  dead  and 
greasy-looking  chops,  stone  cold.  Peter  stood 
looking  at  them  helplessly,  in  utter  and  futile  dis 
may. 

It  was  left  to  Joan  to  voice  a  protest,  and  that 
she  did,  the  next  morning. 

"I'm  a  union  worker,"  said  Mrs.  Mulligan. 

"And  does  that  mean  that  at  five  o'clock  yon 
simply  walk  out  and  leave  everything  behind  you 
in  a  perfect  mess?"  Joan  asked. 

"If  you  don't  like  it,  you  can  come  home 
earlier,"  Mrs.  Mulligan  told  her.  "I  don't  have 
to  be  working  for  the  likes  of  you.  My  sister's 
uncle  is  a  great  man  in  Canada,  I'll  have  you 
know.  I  was  born  in  a  grand  place  myself.  I 
needn't  work  if  I  don't  want  to.  I  had  a  son 
woul  i  have  kept  me  in  grand  style  with  an  autee- 


282  PETER    KINDRED 

mo-bile  if  he  was  living.  But  he  died.  It's  a  sad 
world."  She  wept  a  little.  "I  don't  have  to  be 
working  for  the  likes  of  you,"  she  wound  up 
finally,  "and  you  can  just  come  home  earlier." 

So  Mrs.  Mulligan  was  dismissed  from  service, 
and  so  was  a  Mrs.  Shiplivsky  some  few  days  later, 
when  Joan,  coming  home  unexpectedly  at  noon, 
found  that  good  lady  comfortably  ensconced  in  a 
chair,  a  whisky  bottle  in  one  hand  and  a  news 
paper  in  the  other. 

The  slums  seemed  to  be  entirely  drained  of  help 
ers  at  that  point,  Mrs.  Mulligan  and  the  Mrs.  Ship 
livsky  being  the  only  ladies  apparently  on  the 
whole  east  side  with  the  necessary  leisure  and 
temperament  for  the  friendly  business  of  house 
keeping.  Since  Joan  knew  well  that  an  experi 
enced  maid  was  entirely  beyond  her  resources,  she 
was  obliged  to  shoulder  the  burden  herself.  But 
as  she  told  Peter,  she  was  happier  for  knowing 
that  no  miserable  creature  was  dirtying  her  little 
home.  Yet  it  was  no  slight  task  to  come  home  at 
half-past  six  and  start  supper  at  once.  It  was 
an  hour  before  they  could  be  ready,  or  even  an 
'hour  and  a  half,  and  that  brought  supper  at  eight, 
and  they  were  very  hungry  then.  They  could  not 
be  through  cleaning  and  tidying  until  late,  and  so 
there  seemed  to  be  no  time  for  reading  or  for 
anything,  for  that  matter,  save  cooking  and  clean 
ing,  and  then  cooking  and  cleaning  all  over  again. 

But  Peter's  mother  looked  with  almost  a  thrill 
upon  her  bohemian  children,  one  of  them  aa  ad- 


PETER   KINDRED  283 

vertising  man,  and  one  of  them  on  the  staff  of  a 
certain  great  magazine,  and  both  of  them  so  ro 
mantically  happy  in  the  slums  .  .  .  imagine ! 

Well  .  .  .  they  were  happy  enough,  Lord 
knows,  laughing  their  trouble  away  as  best  they 
could.  And  if  Peter's  heart  grew  hot  and  rebel 
lious  at  all  Mulligans  and  Shiplivskys,  it  was 
stirred,  too,  with  a  strange  and  troubled  tender 
ness  for  the  eager,  slim  woman  beside  him,  a  dumb 
tenderness  that  swept  through  him  like  music, 
that  cried  mutely  for  some  expression.  He  kissed 
the  tips  of  her  fingers,  and  his  spirit  struggled 
with  wings  in  his  breast ;  he  wanted  to  kneel  before 
her,  to  lose  himself  in  a  passion  of  articulate 
speech.  He  could  do  no  more  than  hold  her  very 
tight,  and  help  with  the  dishes. 

It  was  entirely  as  they  had  dreamed  of  living, 
and  yet  Peter  wondered  sometimes  if  it  were  pos 
sible  that  their  dream  in  its  broad  sweep  had 
troubled  itself  too  little  with  Mulligans.  And 
with  Joan's  slender  health  to  guard,  it  was  less 
like  treason  to  wonder. 

For  a  while  an  unfortunate  succession  of  en 
gagements  that  Helen  could  not  break,  and  Don's 
work  at  law  school  kept  them  away  from  the  tene 
ment,  and  so  it  was  nearly  a  fortnight  after  the 
Shiplivsky  incident  that  they  finally  came  again, 
together,  for  supper.  By  then  Joan  and  Peter 
were  growing  just  a  bit  lonely  for  them. 

"My  dears,"  Helen  announced  as  she  came  im 
petuously  through  the  door,  "we've  brought  you 


284  PETER    KINDRED 

the  most  entirely  beautiful  pie  you  ever  saw  m 
your  life.  Didn't  we,  Don?  And  there  were  per 
fectly  fascinating  cakes  as  well,  but  he  wouldn't 
let  me  buy  any.  Oh,  dear!  But  I  do  like  you, 
anyway,"  she  told  him  comfortingly. 

Don  said  little,  but  he  was  content  just  to  be 
there  again  with  Peter  and  Joan,  and  watched 
them  half  anxiously,  gravely  happy.  It  seemed 
as  though  he  had  put  all  his  own  hopes  and  be 
liefs  into  their  hands,  as  though  he  had  given  his 
own  life  into  the  keeping  of  that  tenement,  and 
Peter  and  Joan.  And  Helen,  too,  in  her  own  way, 
watched  Joan  and  Peter  anxiously  and  more 
sharply  than  they  thought,  while  she  bustled  about 
and  opened  packages  and  peeked  into  closets. 

Joan  set  them  all  to  work  at  once.  Don's  blond 
head  was  bent  over  a  bowl  into  whose  thick  yel 
low  depths  he  peeled  potatoes  with  a  tremendous 
carving  knife.  Opposite  him  Peter  meekly  cut 
up  carrots,  and  later  washed  the  leaves  of  a  head 
of  lettuce  very  carefully  under  the  faucet  of  the 
sink.  Helen  set  the  little  round  table  with  four 
crowded  places,  and  assisted  everybody  with 
everything,  while  Joan,  imperious  and  urgent, 
moved  the  pots  about  on  the  stove,  lighted  the 
gas  jets,  opened  doors,  and  gave  directions. 

" Peter,"  Don  said  in  a  low  voice,  "  Joan  looks 
a  bit  tired,  don't  you  think?"  Peter  nodded  his 
head,  but  Joan,  overhearing  it,  laughed  lightly. 

"Joan,"  Helen  said,  "you  absolutely  must  take 
care  of  yourself.  Mustn't  she,  Don?" 


PETER   KINDRED  285 

"My  dear,"  Joan  answered,  "I  have  Peter  to 
take  care  of,  and  that's  enough  for  anyone.  His 
buttons  fall  off  by  millions :  I  have  never  seen  such 
buttons." 

"She's  really  "working  awfully  hard  at  the  of 
fice,"  Peter  said. 

"Well,  that's  fine, "'Don  said  sagely,  "but  I 
wouldn't  overdo  it." 

They  were  at  supper,  the  table  piled  awkwardly 
with  dishes.  Joan  brought  things  sizzling  over 
from  the  stove;  they  all  made  a  great  business  of 
eating,  and  whatever  they  lacked  in  food  or  com 
fort  they  made  up  in  laughter.  The  three  had 
chairs,  but  Peter  sat  on  a  low  rocking  chair  and 
rocked  up  and  down  over  tis  food,  his  head  and 
shoulders  just  above  the  table.  Joan  did  cook 
unusually  well,  yet  even  the  worst  cooking  in  the 
world  would  have  tasted  good  enough  to  those 
four  together  in  the  tiny  yellow-lighted  room  with 
the  big  stove  and  the  china  closet  and  the  great 
windows;  only  Peter  thought  that  the  carrots 
would  have  been  better  if  he  had  been  less  familiar 
with  them.  Under  the  table  their  knees  all 
bumped  together. 

"I'll  grow  more  used  to  it  after  a  time,"  Joan 
said,  while  she  poured  cocoa  into  the  four  cups 
and  insisted  with  a  gesture  that  Peter  eat  all  his 
carrots. 

"Pro  been  to  see  the  Gary  people,"  Helen  said 
"Have  you?"  Joan  cried  eagerly.    "What  did 
they  say?" 


286  PETER    KINDRED 

"I  can  work  there  a  bit  if  I  want  to,  and  learn 
what  they're  doing.  Of  course  I'd  get  no  pay 
for  it." 

"You  don't  care,  do  you?" 

"I  don't  need  it,  I  suppose  .  .  .  and  yet,  you 
always  feel  differently  about  a  thing  if  you're 
paid  for  it." 

"I  think  it  would  be  an  awfully  good  experience 
for  you,  Helen,"  Joan  said. 

"I  suppose  it  would.  I  may  do  it.  Ultimately, 
I  imagine,  that  they'd  give  me  a  regular  posi 
tion." 

"You  bet  you'll  do  it,  young  lady,"  Don  said 
sternly. 

"Joan,"  cried  Helen  plaintively,  "will  yon 
make  that  man  stop  trying  to  order  me  around  all 
the  time  ?  I  tell  you,  I  can 't  even  breathe  without 
'his  permission." 

"  He 's  perfectly  right, ' '  Joan  decided.  ' '  Reach 
behind'  you,  Don,  and  get  the  lettuce  like  a  dear 
man." 

"What  is  more,"  said  Don  to  Helen,  "if  you 
don't  behave  yourself  you'll  have  no  pie." 

"You're  a  perfect  pig,  and  I'll  go  right  down  to 
a  settlement  and  conduct  a  Bible  class  for  little 
children  .  .  .  there! 

"Then  I  shall  tell  these  people  what  you  said 
about  them  the  night  you  cried  and  .  .  . 

"Don  Mark!  if  you  don't  be  still  instantly 
I  ...  I'll  pinch  your  baby  when  you  have 
one!" 


PETER   KINDRED  287 

"What  did  she  say,  Don?"  Peter  demanded, 
laughing. 

"She  said  that  everybody  she  loved  was  get 
ting  married/'  Don  said  brazenly,  "and  that  she 
didn't  know  how  she'd  live  all  alone  without  you 
two,  and  that  if  anything  ever  happened  to 
you  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  dear,"  Helen  wailed,  and  hid  her  face  in 
her  napkin,  but  Joan  stopped  a  moment  on  her 
way  to  the  stove  and  rumpled  Helen's  hair. 

But  after  all,  Joan  was  tired,  and  there  was  no 
gainsaying  it,  although  she  tried  in  a  thousand 
ways  to  hide  it.  She  needed  rest,  and  there  was 
no  way  of  resting;  little  things  accumulated  and 
had  to  be  done,  cooking,  cleaning,  the  minor  parts 
of  housekeeping,  and  then  long  and  unaccustomed 
hours  at  the  office.  The  color  went  out  of  her 
cheeks,  but  she  resented  fiercely  the  implication 
that  it  was  beyond  her  strength. 

"Don't  be  absurd,"  she  told  Peter,  "I'm  not 
doing  any  more  than  other  people  are  doing." 

Autumn  was  growing  sere  and  slipping  into 
winter.  There  were  fewer  voices  on  the  street  at 
night,  and  the  sun  at  morning  through  the  window 
was  pleasant  and  warm  on  the  breakfast  table. 
The  court  of  the  tenement  as  the  sun  fell  more 
and  more  to  the  south  grew  gloomier  and  quieter, 
and  lamps  at  night  were  clearer  in  the  cold.  The 
wind  began  to  boom  from  the  west,  and  the  sky 
to  grow  faintly  gray,  as  though  from  the  far  north 


288  PETER    KINDRED 

shadows  of  snow  darkened  the  clouds.  More  and 
more  Peter  was  aware  of  the  insistent  odor  of 
the  model  tenements;  it  seemed  to  him  that  it 
was  an  odor  of  pathos,  of  unequal  struggle,  of 
unwilling  helplessness.  Sometimes  from  the  win 
dows  of  these  little  flats  tired  and  wan  faces  of 
women  peered  out  at  the  street,  where  mothers 
walked  with  their  baby  carriages  or  neat  children 
played  gloomily  among  shouting  muckers.  It 
was  a  pathetic  fight  for  respectability,  waged 
against  uneven  odds,  for  self-respect,  for  cleanli 
ness,  a  battle  fought  by  failures,  who  must  have 
realized  their  failure  and  yet  who  clung  tenaci 
ously  to  the  little  they  could  keep  from  their  hopes 
and  faith.  Here  they  could  still  be  clean,  could 
still  have  some  mite  of  sun  and  air  and  sky,  could 
still  treasure  some  bit  of  finery,  and  enjoy  pri 
vacy.  Here,  too,  through  the  well-built  doorways, 
they  could  walk  without  entire  shame,  and  yet  the 
odor  of  defeat  persisted,  saddening  Peter  despite 
himself.  Beyond,  the  thrumming  slums  waited, 
teeming,  squalid  and  ominous,  shrill  and  defiant, 
low-voiced  and  uneasy,  restless  and  brooding. 
Faint  circles  grew  beneath  Joan 's  eyes ;  at  night 
when  the  dishes  were  washed  she  went  to  bed  and 
fell  asleep  at  once,  and  in  the  morning  she  was 
slow  at  rising.  Peter,  too,  was  tired.  But  Joan 
said  only  that  she  must  grow  used  to  it,  that  she 
was  unaccustomed. 

"Old  one,"  Don  said  to  him  as  they  walked  up 
town  together,  "what's  the  matter.    Joan  looks 


PETER    KINDRED  289 

frightfully,  and  you're  thin  and  tired-looking 
yourself.  What's  wrong?" 

"  Nothing,  Don  .  .  .  except  the  theory  of  labor, 
perhaps.  Carver  would  say  that  there  was  noth 
ing  wrong. ' '  He  spoke  half  bitterly. 

"Fiddlesticks!  Peter,  tell  me  what  the  trouble 
is." 

"Why,  it's  nothing,  Don  .  .  .  just  little  things 
of  utterly  no  importance.  Joan's  tired,  and  she 
can't  rest  up.  I  hardly  know  what  to  say  .  .  . 
just  these  silly  little  things  that  have  to  be  done 
— cooking — cleaning — and  then  all  day  at  the  of 
fice." 

4  *  You  can 't  go  on  getting  more  and  more  tired, 
Peter." 

"I  know,  I  know,"  Peter  said  wearily.  "But 
what  is  there  to  do?  At  noon  we  lunch  together 
at  a  miserable  bakery,  and  so  we  must  have  a  de 
cent  supper.  And  that  means  cooking,  and  when 
we  get  up,  we  must  have  breakfast.  And  that 
means  more  cooking.  And  who  is  to  do  all 
that?" 

"But  heavens  above,  man,  can't  you  get  a 
woman  in  to  help?" 

Peter  shook  his  head.  "That's  just  the  rotten 
part  of  it,"  he  said.  "People  do  their  own  work 
in  the  slums." 

Don  whistled  apprehensively.  "You'll  have  to 
find  someone  somewhere,"  he  said. 

"There's  no  one,  Don.  And  if  there  were  a 
woman  who  had  the  time,  she'd  be  too  proud  to 


290  PETER    KINDRED 

do  our  work.  You  don't  understand  the  slums. 
People  are  ashamed  to  cook  and  to  wash  dishes  in 
this  country.  And  after  five  o'clock  they  must  all 
be  home." 

They  walked  on  for  a  bit  in  silence,  and  then 
Peter  continued  hesitatingly,  almost  as  though 
he  were  trying  to  straighten  things  out  in  his  own 
mind. 

"Somehow,"  he  said,  "I'm  getting  to  feel  dif 
ferently  about  things,  Don.  These  people  that  I 
meet,  the  folk  I  run  up  against  and  have  dealings 
with — they're  all  so  miserably  different  from  what 
I  had  expected  and  imagined.  Sometimes  I  catch 
nyself  wondering  if  I  haven 't  been  too  enthusias 
tic,  too  eager  after  all,  too  optimistic." 

"Oh,  come,  Peter,"  Don  said,  "you're  a  bit  low, 
you  know." 

"No,  it's  not  that  entirely.  But  Lord  knows, 
to  build,  to  produce  for  the  state,  you  need  folk 
to  help.  You  need  a  bit  of  co-operation,  a  bit  of 
help  here  and  there.  You  need  some  sort  of  tol 
erance,  some  amount  of  though tfulness  in  other 
people.  All  these  folks  are  out  for  themselves  in 
•t  blind  panic." 

"The  man  who  builds  truest  produces  most  for 
the  state." 

"He  has  no  chance  to.  The  man  who  boasts 
louder  outsells  him  and  enlarges  and  finally  runs 
him  out  of  business." 

"In  the  long  run "  Don  began. 

"Hell  with  the  long  run,"  Peter  said  gloomily, 


PETER   KINDRED  291 

"I  know  the  principle  of  the  silly  thing  as  well  as 
you  do." 

"In  the  long  run,"  Don  went  on  calmly,  "the 
man  who  makes  real  things  comes  out  on  top." 

"Oh,  I  suppose  so,"  Peter  admitted  wearily,  "if 
he's  well  subsidized  to  start  with,  and  can  live  on 
next  to  nothing  for  half  a  century." 

Finally  Peter  broke  out  crossly:  "I  tell  you, 
men  build  up  their  whole  lives  on  the  fact  that 
they  can  fool  other  men.  Perfectly  naively.  And 
they  pile  up  tremendous  fortunes." 

"It's  for  you  to  fight  against  that  sort  of 
thing,"  Don  said. 

"But  what  have  I  to  fight  with?  Faith  in  the 
right,  belief  in  Carver,  and  fifteen  dollars  a  week. 
I'll  lose  the  fifteen  dollars  if  ever  I  insist  too 
loudly  on  the  rest." 

"Success  ..."  began  Don  sternly. 

"Akh,"  Peter  said  quickly,  "I  must  live,  Don. 
Later  ...  all  the  moralizing  you  please." 

They  walked  together  up  Fifth  Avenue  toward 
Fifty-ninth  Street,  past  the  bronze  doors  and 
broad  windows  of  great  shops,  past  the  gray  build 
ings,  past  the  buttressed  towers  of  St.  Patrick's, 
the  deep-roomed,  portly  clubs,  the  silent  houses. 
Evening  was  growing  in  the  city,  and  street  lamps 
burned  a  pale  yellow  in  the  twilight  along  the 
gleaming  avenue. 

"All  this,"  Peter  said,  "goes  through  me  like 
some  old,  stately  music.  I  want  it,  I  want  it 
awfully  ...  I  want  to  be  part  of  it,  to  know  the 


292  PETER    KINDRED 

people,  to  be  someone  among  them  ...  to  make 
it  somehow  my  city." 

"  You  're  tired,  old  one,"  Don  said,  "and 
gloomy.  You  need  a  bit  of  Joan  to  cheer  yon  up. 
It  wouldn't  be  fair  to  argue  with  you." 

"Yes,"  Peter  said.  And  then,  "Oh,  I  wish  .  .  . 
I  wish  .  .  .  that  Joan  and  I  ..." 

He  was  suddenly  silent,  curiously  troubled  by 
something. 

But  whatever  it  was,  he  could  not  speak  of  it 
to  Don. 

Ultimately,  however,  they  did  find  a  woman  to 
help  them  somewhat,  to  do  their  breakfast  dishes 
and  the  beds,  and  to  start  their  supper  before  they 
came  home.  It  cost  them  almost  half  of  Joan's 
earnings,  and  left  them  little  for  food,  but  Peter 
felt  that  it  was  well  worth  the  sacrifice,  and 
blithely  minimized  his  appetite,  and  that  was  not 
good  for  him. 

Snow  fell  over  the  city  before  Christmas ;  in  a 
day  it  was  black  mud  in  the  gutters,  and  dirty  low 
piles  in  the  middle  of  the  streets.  For  a  morning, 
while  it  had  been  white,  the  city  had  seemed  pass 
ing  sunny — and  cheerful,  but  afterwards  the  city 
was  gloomier  and  more  despondent  than  ever.  A 
moist  chill  rose  from  the  pavements  and  drifted 
in  the  wind,  and  Peter  shivered  in  his  coat. 

It  was  a  bitter  matter  to  Peter  that  he  had  so 
little  money  to  spend  on  Joan's  Christmas.  There 
was  not  even  enough  to  buy  her  a  suitable  gift, 


PETER    KINDRED  293 

and  so  he  stole  a  stocking  of  hers,  and  roamed 
about  the  shops  whenever  he  could,  to  find  some 
thing  to  go  in  it.  The  great  department  stores 
were  fairly  seething  with  people,  with  all  the 
women  in  the  world,  he  thought,  scented  and 
harassed.  Jostled  by  crowds  and  unnoticed  by 
saleswomen,  he  was  fairly  unsuccessful  in  his 
search,  and  could  buy  her  nothing  but  a  pair  of 
mittens,  and  hoped  desperately  that  she  had  none. 
For  the  rest,  he  filled  the  stocking  with  little  trin 
kets  and  fruit  and  candy  that  he  bought  at  small 
corner  stores  sweet  smelling  with  Christmas  trees 
arrayed  on  the  street  before  their  windows,  and 
hung  the  stocking  at  the  foot  of  her  bed  in  the 
dark,  with  a  sore  heart  for  the  lightness  of  it. 
Yet  in  the  morning  Joan's  surprised  happiness 
at  the  mittens  and  the  childish  delight  with  which 
she  spread  the  trinkets  out  before  her  on  her  coun 
terpane,  touched  him  so  deeply  that  he  came  near 
crying  because  he  loved  her  and  all  that  he  said 
and  did  was  so  inadequate. 

Her  parents  sent  a  huge  box  from  Boston.  It 
smelled  deliciously  of  frosty  wood,  and  when 
opened  contained  a  little  of  very  nearly  every 
thing  in  the  world,  and  only  Don  and  Helen  were 
needed  then,  to  make  a  celebration  of  it.  Helen 
arrived  first,  but  Peter  thought  that  when  Don 
came  in  Helen  grew  a  bit  quiet  and  self-con 
scious. 

"What  happened,  dear?"  he  asked  Joan  that 
night  when  the  two  friends  had  gone. 


294  PETER    KINDRED 

"I've  wanted  to  tell  you,  Peter,"  she  said  to 
him  gravely.  '  *  Helen  is  in  love  with  Don. ' ' 

Peter  stared  at  Joan  with  an  open  mouth.  Such 
a  thought  had  never  entered  his  head.  He  began 
to  laugh  quietly. 

"Why,"  he  cried,  "isn't  that  perfectly  fine!" 

"No,  dear,  it's  not,"  Joan  said  gravely,  and  he 
grew  sober  at  once.  After  all,  it  was  not.  It 
came  over  him  that  it  would  be  a  one-sided  love 
affair.  Don  was  not  in  love  with  Helen;  Peter 
knew  that  of  a  certainty.  He  remembered  that 
Don  had  called  her  too  emotional  once ;  he  began 
to  feel  saddened  and  helpless. 

"How  do  you  know,  Joan  I'.'  he  asked. 

"Helen  told  me  ...  of  course.  And  I'm  very 
much  afraid  that  it  will  spoil  things,  Peter." 

"Do  you  know,  I  thought  that  Helen  seemed 
a  little  subdued  .  .  .  ever  after  that  supper  when 
she  said  she'd  pinch  his  baby.  But  heavens,  I 
hadn  't  the  faintest  idea  that  it  was  anything  but 
my  own  imagination." 

"The  worst  of  it  is  that  now  she'll  be  shy  and 
self-conscious,  and  Don  will  detest  that.  You've 
never  met  her  family,  have  you,  Peter?  Her 
father  is  a  great  big  man  with  a  curious,  stubborn 
temper.  I've  heard  him  shout  and  roar  at  dinner 
and  I've  seen  him  put  his  feet  up  on  the  table, 
just  to  torment  his  wife  before  guests.  And 
Helen's  mother  keeps  dinning  into  Helen's  ears 
how  splendid  all  the  other  daughters  are,  and  how 
ungrateful  Helen  is  herself.  And  the  two  of  them, 


PETER   KINDRED  295 

in  a  thousand  little  ways,  try  to  make  Helen  think 
that  she's  an  awfully,  awfully  inferior  sort  of 
person.  I  don't  know  whether  they  really  mean 
to  do  it,  or  not,  but  the  harm  was  all  done  long 
ago." 

"It's  miserable,  isn't  it,"  Peter  said, — "can't 
we  buck  Helen  up?" 

"No  ...  no.  There's  no  way  of  doing  it.  She 
needs  .  .  .  Oh,  she  needs  success.  Either  a  man, 
or  some  big  work.  You  see,  she  has  nothing  to  go 
by,  dear.  No  man  has  ever  made  love  to  her. 
And  she 's  never  really  done  anything.  That 's  why 
I'm  so  anxious  for  her  to  take  up  Gary  work,  and 
make  something  of  it." 

"Hanged  if  I  don't  go  to  Don  and  jolly  well 
tell  him  what  I  think  of  him,"  Peter  said.  A 
mighty  wave  of  quixotic  affection  for  Joan  swept 
through  him,  and  carried  along  with  it  all  women's 
lives.  Because  of  her,  and  from  his  great  happi 
ness,  he  wanted  to  do  battle  for  the  happiness  of 
all  sad  women.  He  felt  old  and  wise  and  radiantly 
capable  of  settling  all  the  world's  small  troubling 
out  of  hand.  Joan  rebuked  him  gravely. 

"Hanged  if  you  don't  jolly  well  go  to  bed  now, 
dear,"  she  said. 

As  the  days  passed,  quietness  drew  in  on  Helen 
more  and  more,  and  little  by  little  she  came  to  sit 
silently  in  a  corner,  watching  Joan  and  Peter  with 
wistful  intentness,  and  rarely  looked  at  Don; 
when  she  spoke  to  him,  it  seemed  to  Peter's 


296  PETER    KINDRED 

anxious  mind  that  she  hesitated  and  stumbled. 
All  the  gleefulness  of  her  spirit  seemed  to  have 
been  subdued ;  she  appeared  to  be  questioning  her 
self.  When  she  rallied  Don  it  was  with  a  curious 
faint  note  of  defiance  in  her  voice.  Don,  alone, 
noticed  nothing,  and  for  that  Peter  gave  due 
thanks.  Despite  his  first  excited  quixotism,  he 
knew  that  if  Don  thought  for  a  moment  that  Helen 
was  in  love  with  him,  he,  too,  would  grow  troubled 
and  silent,  would  try  to  keep  away  from  her. 

It  was  strange,  how  singularly  complex  it  made 
life,  how  shadowed  and  worried  and  uneasy,  this 
self-consciousness  about  love.  If  only,  Peter  said 
to  himself,  people  didn't  think  about  it  so  much, 
and  if  it  weren  't  so  miserably  necessary  for  their 
bodies,  and  if  it  could  only  be  administered  in  lit 
tle  pills,  what  a  tremendous  lot  of  work  people 
could  do. 

But  why  was  Peter  himself  so  restless? 

Helen,  sadly  in  need  of  bucking  up,  had  a  long 
talk  with  Joan. 

4 'I'm  such  an  inferior  sort  of  person, "  she 
said.  "No  man  could  like  me  very  much." 

"Don't  be  absurd,"  Joan  exclaimed.  "How 
can  you  say  such  a  thing?" 

"Because  .  .  .  and  he  needs  a  clever  woman, 
with  all  sorts  of  self-control.  I'm  just  a  dabbler. 
And  even  mother  thinks  that  I  am  ugly." 

"Oh,"  cried  Joan,  "darn  your  mother." 

But  if  affairs  had  tangled  themselves  on  the 


PETER   KINDRED  297 

east  side,  and  had  grown  so  very  complicated,  they 
had  gone  smoothly  enough  on  the  west  side. 

"Peter,  my  dear,"  his  mother  whispered  to  him 
on  a  night  in  January,  "I  have  a  secret  for  you." 
She  was  excited  about  something,  and  after  tak 
ing  Peter's  arm,  drew  him  into  her  own  room. 

"Edith  is  engaged,"  she  announced  radiantly. 

"Oh,"  said  Peter  blankly. 

His  mother  licked  her  lips,  as  though  she  were 
rolling  the  news  about  in  her  mouth,  and  tasting  it. 

"To  Eddie,"  she  whispered  in  dramatic  tri 
umph. 

Peter's  first  reaction  was  a  sharp  stabbing  of 
displeasure,  a  feeling  as  though  this  sleek  Eddie 
had  come  too  close  to  him  and  were  patting  him 
familiarly  on  the  back,  as  though,  somehow,  he 
had  been  made  unfairly  defenseless  against  that 
unpleasant  creature.  But  his  mother  was  extraor 
dinarily  well  pleased.  How  she  smiled  ...  it  oc 
curred  to  him  suddenly  that  Edith,  too,  must  be 
tremendously  happy. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "isn't  that  fine?" 

And  it  did  seem  vaguely  pleasant  that  Edith 
should  be  engaged.  Coming  to  consider  the  mat 
ter,  Peter  supposed  that  he  would  see  little  enough 
of  his  brother-in-law,  after  all,  and  if  Edith  were 
so  well  pleased  with  her  choice  .  .  .  why,  it  would 
do.  But  Peter  felt,  too,  that  it  would  make  small 
difference  what  he  thought  about  the  matter. 

It  was  a  relief  at  dinner  to  find  Eddie  a  trifle 
subdued,  and  not  inclined  to  any  unusual  familiar- 


298  PETER    KINDRED 

ity.  Indeed,  Eddie  seemed  suddenly  halted  in 
mid  career,  and  appeared  to  be  wondering  what 
had  happened  to  him.  For  a  while  Peter  felt 
sorry  for  Eddie,  and  then  sorry  for  Edith,  and 
then  impersonal  and  above  the  whole  matter 
and  sorry  for  no  one  at  all.  But  his  mother 
planned  volubly  innumerable  affairs  for  the  be 
trothed  couple,  and  Edith,  sitting  beside  her 
pleased  father,  fed  Eddie  small  bits  of  bread, 
which  he  ate  timidly. 

The  winter  passed  for  that  young  couple  in  a 
round  of  dances.  Snow  came  heavily  in  Febru 
ary,  whirling  through  the  narrow,  deep  streets, 
and  after  it  came  sturdy,  poorly  clothed  men,  with 
long  shovels,  and  a  light  of  hope  in  their  eyes,  re 
kindled  hope  for  the  bit  of  work  given  them,  men 
chattering  in  all  manner  of  languages,  blowing  on 
their  cold  red  hands,  shovelling  the  snow  into  lum 
bering  carts,  to  be  dumped  unceremoniously  into 
the  river. 

"If  only  I  could  get  those  men  into  the  coun 
try,"  Peter  said  to  himself.  And  then  he  won 
dered  if  they'd  not  all  come  running  back  home 
again. 

Two  days  of  warm  sun  melted  the  remnants  of 
the  snow  to  black  slush,  and  that  was  all  of  winter. 

At  such  dances  given  for  Edith  as  Peter  could 
not  politely  refuse,  he  was  introduced  to  the  so 
ciety  of  his  sister's  group.  There  he  saw  the  rib 
bon  king's  daughter,  and  many  other  daughters, 


PETER    KINDRED  299 

identical  to  her  save  here  or  there  in  the  matter 
of  embellishment.  There  were  a  great  many  men 
patterned  after  Eddie.  These  men,  caught  in 
groups  in  the  dressing  room,  consumed  endless 
cigarettes;  they  seemed  to  have  no  faintest  idea 
why  they  were  there,  nor  did  they  impress  Peter 
with  knowing  what  their  life  was  all  about,  but 
they  were  sure  that  it  was  important,  neverthe 
less,  and  so  when  they  discussed  any  matter,  or 
spoke  of  social  affairs,  it  was  always  in  an  ener 
getic  and  weighty  manner. 

Peter  was  secretly  troubled  at  these  dances, 
troubled  at  the  very  prodigality  of  sex.  There 
was  something  restless  about  all  of  it,  something 
half  barbaric  and  half  passionate,  yet  half  flip 
pant  and  thoroughly  careless,  something  old  and 
spoiled,  romance  with  the  dust  brushed  from  its 
wings,  children  unable  to  enjoy  fairy  stories. 

He  turned  to  a  woman  beside  him. 

"But  I  should  think  you'd  grow  so  fearfully 
tired,"  he  said. 

She  smiled  at  him  pleasantly,  and  waved  her 
fan.  * '  I  do, ' '  she  answered,  *  '  I  get  awfully  tired. ' 9 

He  looked  at  her  with  faint  interest.  Then  he 
turned  and  waved  his  hand  at  the  crowded  room 
and  the  dancers. 

"Tell  me,"  he  said,  "how  under  the  sun  do  you 
ever  find  time  to  think  in  all  this?" 

It  was  a  bit  out  of  her  depth,  and  she  pouted 
and  toyed  with  her  fan.  It  occurred  to  her  finally 
to  venture  upon  more  familiar  ground. 


300  PETER    KINDRED 

"They  say  that  you're  a  socialist  and  live  in 
the  slums,  and  everything/ '  she  said  brightly. 
Peter  looked  at  her  gloomily. 
"Not  everything/'  he  answered  patiently. 


CHAPTER  XI 

TT7ITH  the  first  sluggishness  of  spring  in  the 

*  *  city,  Peter's  weekly  salary  was  doubled. 
The  amazing  part  of  it  was  that  it  came  entirely 
unexpected,  the  result  of  happy  chance  and  a  flare 
of  impudence.  It  so  happened  that  a  very  par 
ticular  idea  was  needed  for  a  very  particular  com 
pany  that  manufactured  an  excessively  mediocre 
line  of  jellies. 

"Oh,  the  devil,"  Peter  said  idly,  when  he  heard 
about  it,  "why  not  take  a  lot  of  howling  big  space 
and  advertise  in  direct  public  letters  to  the  White 
House  r> 

"Do  you  mean  to  the  President,  Kindred?" 
asked  a  solicitor,  who  overheard  him. 

"No,"  said  Peter  with  what  he  imagined  was 
comic  seriousness,  "what  would  he  do  with  a  lot 
of  jellies'?  To  the  President's  wife,  of  course." 

"There's  something  in  that,  you  know,"  the  so 
licitor  muttered. 

And  the  preposterous  idea  was  taken,  and  the 
wages  of  the  horrified  Peter  were  doubled. 

301 


302  PETER    KINDRED 

The  next  Saturday,  with  thirty  dollars  in  his 
pocket,  he  walked  home  slowly,  up  Fifth  Avenue 
and  through  the  Park,  from  Fifty-ninth  Street, 
and  then  east  again  at  Seventy-second.  In  the 
Park  the  turgid  breaking  of  winter  was  apparent. 
The  sun  of  late  afternoon  slanted  across  the  dis 
tant  roof  tops  of  the  west  side  in  full  yellow,  and  a 
moist  wind,  grave  and  chilly,  blew  at  him  from  the 
east.  Old  and  forgotten  snow  lay  scattered,  half 
ice,  half  melted,  gray  with  the  passage  of  days, 
like  tufts  of  dingy  cotton  caught  in  the  crevices  of 
rocks.  There  was  a  sweet  smell  of  wet,  sun- 
warmed,  brown  earth,  and  it  mingled  and  drifted 
with  the  odor  of  asphalt,  of  pavements,  of  oil  and 
motors  and  old  gray  snow.  Here  in  the  Park  there 
was  comparative  quiet,  save  for  the  inescapable 
murmur  of  the  city,  and  Peter  let  his  thoughts 
drift  to  Cambridge. 

To  Cambridge  .  .  .  there  was  a  deal  of  peace- 
fulness  in  the  very  sound  of  it.  It  would  be  good 
to  be  there,  in  those  level  spaces,  to  rest  and  think 
things  over.  To  look  at  his  life  through  the  little 
end  of  the  telescope.  To  see  Joan,  too,  from  that 
untroubled  and  unhurried  calm? 

And  yet  Peter  knew  that  he  would  find  those 
spaces  all  too  bare  that  had  once  been  so  richly 
fraught  with  quietness,  the  students  passing  and 
repassing  upon  their  inexigent  tasks  all  too  young 
and  untried.  He  had  been  away  little  less  than 
a  year,  and  already  the  old  Peter  was  a  curiously 
boyish  fellow  to  him,  with  square,  flat  beliefs  about 


PETER    KINDRED  303 

things,  and  an  almost  unbelievable  enthusiasm. 
And  the  old  house  on  Holyoke  .  .  .  what  argu 
ments  had  raged  there !  About  what?  He  hardly 
knew  ...  it  seemed  to  him  that  from  that  quiet 
ness,  that  peace,  that  shining  faith,  he  had  come 
against  the  world  to  find — what!  He  thought  of 
the  office,  his  desk  there,  the  shouting  and  brazen 
city  below  him,  spread  to  the  north;  he  thought 
of  jellies  and  jams,  and  his  fingers  touched  the 
crisp  bills  in  his  pocket.  For  an  impudence  he 
had  been  allowed  to  live,  he  and  his  faith. 

"Carver,"  he  said  to  himself,  "is  the  religion 
for  a  gentleman.  But  the  first  battle  is  for  breath 
and  the  space  to  be  a  gentleman  in." 

How  bitterly  he  would  have  opposed  that  once, 
with  the  logic  and  the  majesty  of  the  state. 

"I  can't  bother  with  it  now,"  he  said,  "I  have 
my  breath  and  my  food  to  get.  Later,  perhaps." 

Later  he  would  build  strongly  for  the  state. 

And  still  it  would  be  good  to  be  in  Cambridge, 
to  look  back  over  his  year  from  a  perspective,  to 
advance  old  enthusiasms  against  the  city  and 
watch  their  fate.  It  would  be  good  to  walk  out 
through  Waverly  and  sit  again  on  that  familiar 
wall,  with  spring  breaking  just  so  sluggishly  over 
the  fields  and  the  hills  of  New  England,  to  watch 
the  low  clouds  pile  up  in  the  south,  to  think  of 
matters  very  slowly  and  peaceably  again,  out  of 
the  hurry  and  press  of  them. 

But  not  Joan. 

As  he  had  walked  a  year  ago  in  Cambridge  at 


304  PETER    KINDRED 

the  end  of  winter,  he  walked  now  in  the  Park,  con 
sidering  Joan.  And  again  he  knew  that  his 
trouble  was  love,  and  again  it  was  new  and  be 
wildering,  but  this  time  it  brought  him  no  con 
tent. 

Gradually  'through  the  bleak  winter,  the  morn 
ings  and  evenings  together,  the  hurried  noons, 
the  tide  of  desire  had  been  growing  in  Peter,  swell- 
and  gathering.  He  had  watched  it  growing  with 
curiosity,  then  bewilderment,  and  finally  with 
alarm. 

Little  by  little  he  had  been  made  aware  of  a 
longing  in  him  that  was  unsatisfied,  and  that  he 
could  not  satisfy. 

Slowly,  but  relentlessly,  it  had  come  over 
Peter  that  his  love  which  had  seemed  so  whole,  so 
complete,  so  perfect,  was  growing,  was  demanding, 
was  insisting.  It  broke  on  his  bewilderment  like 
the  thunder  of  the  sea  on  a  light  sea  wall.  Her 
slender  body,  the  motions  of  her  hands,  the  proud 
carriage  of  her  head,  the  sweep  of  her  hair  from 
her  temples,  all  these  were  in  the  ringing  of  that 
sea,  and  beat  upon  him  with  ever  redoubling 
power.  Yet  there  was  no  day  when  he  could  say 
"she  is  dearer  to  be  now  than  she  was  yesterday." 
It  was  the  slow,  merciless  rising  of  a  tide.  Her 
voice  that  he  had  always  loved,  stirred  his  body 
still  more  deeply.  He  kissed  her ;  Peter  was  grown 
used  to  kisses,  and  the  stirring  was  unsatisfied. 
His  heart  quickened  at  the  suppleness  of  her  body. 

Little  by  little  what  he  had  of  her  grew  to  him 


PETER    KINDRED  305 

impalpable  and  fugitive.  He  wanted  something  to 
make  Joan  somehow  real,  to  make  her  truly  his 
own,  one  way  or  another,  something  to  make  her 
his  own  if  he  were  there  or  if  he  were  away,  some 
thing  he  could  pin  on  his  body  and  wear.  There 
was  nothing  to  grasp  at,  nothing  real  about  his  life 
with  her;  it  was  an  elusive  happiness,  forever 
hovering  on  the  edge  of  something  tremendous. 
He  kissed  her,  and  afterwards  there  was  no  dif 
ference  in  the  world.  He  wanted  something  that 
would  make  a  difference  in  the  world  when  he  had 
kissed  her,  something  as  true  and  as  real  as  pain. 
The  tide  of  his  desire  deepened  in  his  body.  He 
wanted  something  to  compass  it,  to  compass  Joan, 
to  compass  everything  in  the  world  ...  to  answer 
him  .  .  . 

After  his  coup,  he  had  planned  to  surprise  her 
with  a  great  bunch  of  flowers.  But  when  the  time 
came  for  that  surprise  he  was  lost  and  over 
whelmed  at  last  in  a  mighty  rush  of  tenderness 
that  leaped  the  barriers  he  had  built  to  hold  it, 
and  swept  through  him,  wreaking  havoc,  mocking 
him,  his  love,  his  very  life.  It  whirled  him  and 
smothered  him  like  a  lost  woodsman  in  white 
water.  His  body  was  possessed  of  insufferable 
longing.  He  could  buy  her  flowers  indefinitely 
...  he  could  buy  her  all  the  flowers  in  the  world, 
and  lose  himself  in  roses  at  her  feet.  And  out 
of  them  he'd  come  as  rebellious,  as  unsatisfied,  as 
ever.  It  wasn't  that  he  wanted  .  .  .  not  flowers. " 

And  so,  finally,  through  the  slow  spring  after- 


306  PETER    KINDRED 

noon  in  the  Park,  he  faced  it  gauntly  .  .  .  this 
thing  ...  he  wanted  Joan  ...  all  of  her  .  .  . 
the  way,  he  thought,  he'd  want  a  woman  of  the 
streets. 

It  had  been  a  slow,  slow  awakening.  He  sat 
down  on  a  bench  and  stared  at  himself.  It  fright 
ened  him,  this  unexpected  declaration  of  his  body. 
The  thought  of  obtruding  it  upon  Joan  'horrified 
him.  He  blamed  himself  bitterly  for  something, 
what,  he  did  not  know,  but  blamed  himself  over 
and  over.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  was  perverse 
and  ridiculous,  that  a  low  fellow  peeked  out  of 
him,  that  he  had  broken  faith  with  himself.  He 
felt  helpless  and  muddled;  he  was  ashamed,  but 
half  ecstatic. 

Far  away,  indeed,  was  Cambridge,  and  the  idyl 
of  the  year  before,  far  away  the  unconcern  of 
Holyoke,  the  serene  and  tempered  reality  of  the 
Yard,  the  untroubled  comings  and  goings.  Sit 
ting  alone  there  on  a  bench  in  the  Park,  he  pon 
dered  the  brutality  of  his  body  and  fought  against 
it,  he  reaffirmed  his  old  beliefs.  They  thundered 
down  from  Cambridge,  a  bright,  Carverian  regi 
ment. 

A  man  had  no  right  to  feel  that  way  about  his 
wife.  It  made  a  fearful  mess  of  things. 

Peter  insisted  grimly  that,  after  all.  he  was  no 
better  than  Eddie. 

With  that  grimness  something  gaunt  and  hard 
crept  into  Peter's  life  for  a  while,  and  he  found 
himself  steeling  his  spirit  against  Joan,  steeling 


PETER   KINDRED  307 

himself  despairingly  against  the  light  touch  of  her 
hands,  forcing  himself  to  let  pass  unnoticed  the 
thousand  tiny  ways  she  ministered  to  him.  But 
if  the  two  cool  fingers  she  laid  upon  his  mouth  as 
she  leaned  across  the  breakfast  table  fled  back  to 
Joan  at  once,  all  morning  long  as  he  bent  above  his 
desk  they  lay  ghostlike  on  his  face.  And  if  he 
shut  his  heart  before  her  eager  smile  to  be  with 
him  again  at  noon,  it  fled  into  his  mind  and 
haunted  him  until  evening.  There  were  many 
nights  Peter  lay  awake  staring  hollow-eyed 
through  the  darkness  at  the  dim  and  unprofaned 
white  of  her  bed  beside  him,  curbing  the  restless 
tossing  of  his  body  for  fear  of  waking  her.  And 
Joan,  awake,  lay  quietly  for  fear  of  waking  him. 

And  so  those  two  very,  very  young  married 
people  went  pathetically  through  early  spring, 
while  Helen  plunged  desperately  into  Gary  work, 
feverishly  energetic  and  utterly  in  despair  by 
turns,  and  Don  with  great  wisdom  and  clarity  of 
argument  discussed  polygamy. 

"The  state,"  he  said,  "is  dependent  upon  its 
population.  "We  need  children,  more  children,  all 
the  children  we  can  get.  But  the  right  sort.  It's 
the  important  question  to-day." 

Here* he  would  look  triumphantly  about  him, 
and  Helen  would  look  at  him  in  hypnotized  misery. 
Then  the  tenement  would  reverberate  with  dread 
ful  and  merciless  debate,  and  in  the  end  they 
would  all  be  hot  and  tired  and  angry. 


308  PETER    KINDRED 

"  I  am  simply  taking  Carver  to  the  logical  ex 
treme,"  he  said.  "A  man  should  have  as  many 
children  as  he  can  support.  A  woman  can  only 
bear  a  certain  number  ...  so  and  so  many  .  .  . 
and  keep  her  health  and  her  usefulness  to  the 
group.  In  the  case  of  the  economically  produc 
tive  man,  then,  all  those  unborn  children  are  a 
waste." 

" Where  will  the  extra  women  come'  from?" 
Joan  asked. 

"Some  men  .  .  .  most  men,  in  fact,  can't  pro 
duce  enough  food,  enough  goods,  to  care  for  the 
full  number  of  children  their  wives  could  bear.  So 
their  wives  will  bear  other  families  besides,  for 
more  economically  successful  men." 

"But  suppose  they  don't  want  to?"  Peter  asked 
scornfully. 

"They'll  be  taught  to  want  to.  Monogamy  is 
only  a  habit." 

"You  can 't  use  people  that  way, ' '  Peter  insisted 
hotly.  "You  won't  get  any  children  at  all." 

Don  gestured  largely.  "You  can't  make  me  be 
lieve,"  he  said,  "that  a  decent,  normal  woman 
would  find  it  such  a  terrible  matter  to  bear  the 
children  of  a  decent,  normal  man." 

Lord,  how  silly  it  was,  and  how  blind  and  deaf 
and  inhuman  Don  sounded  to  Peter.  It  was  im 
possible  to  talk  to  him  with  any  show  of  power; 
directly  Peter  mentioned  any  emotion  whatso 
ever,  Don  heaped  scorn  upon  him. 

"Do  you  think  a  woman  would  share  a  man 


PETER    KINDRED  309 

with  three  other  women  just  because  he  ran  a 
factory  or  some  thing  ?"  Peter  cried. 

"A  matter  of  habit  and  training." 

Peter  thought  of  surrendering  Joan  to  some 
successful  manufacturer  of  shaving  soap,  and 
boiled  over, 

"You  are  awfully  stupid,  you  know,"  he  cried. 

"It  would  be  rather  hard  on  the  poor  man  who 
loved  his  wife,  wouldn't  it?"  Joan  said.  But  she 
didn't  look  at  Peter. 

"I  see  no  reason  why  it  should  be,"  Don  in 
sisted.  "It's  entirely  a  question  of  how  you've 
been  brought  up  to  look  at  things.  I  know  that  I, 
for  one,  would  give  my  wife  gladly  to  the  state,  if 
I  couldn't  support  enough  children." 

Peter  glanced  swiftly  across  at  Helen,  who  was 
leaning  back  in  her  chair,  plucking  nervously  at 
her  dress.  He  turned  to  Don  abruptly. 

"You'll  never  have  any  children,"  he  said. 
"They'll  be  frogs." 

"They  will  not  be  frogs,"  Don  answered  an 
grily. 

"Polywogs  first  .  .  .  and  then  frogs.' 

"It  seems  to  me,"  Helen  said  diffidently,  "that 
none  of  us  knows  enough  biology  to  talk  about  it 
very  well." 

"Eot,"  said  Don. 

"Weren't  most  of  the  rich  men  the  sons  of  ter 
ribly  poor  people?"  Joan  asked. 

Finally  Peter  grew  entirely  upset. 

"What  do  you  know  about  anything!"  he  said 


310  PETER    KINDRED 

to  Don.  "What  do  you  know  about  life  and  peo 
ple  and  .  .  .  and  love,  damn  it?" 

He  shrieked  the  last  words  at  the  top  of  his 
voice. 

'  '  Rot, ' '  said  Don  comfortably. 

From  such  arguments  Peter  came  with  a  grow 
ing  horror  of  intemperance,  and  a  gathering  be 
lief  in  the  futility  of  carrying  anything  to  its 
logical  extreme.  He  began  then  to  entertain  a 
very  healthy  doubt  that  life,  which  seemed  to  him 
to  be  growing  more  and  more  complex  with  each 
successive  day,  could  be  brought  so  logically  and 
lucidly  to  any  simplicity  after  all,  and  he  won 
dered  if  a  man  could  do  better  than  to  take  hold 
of  some  general  principle  big  enough  and  vague 
enough  to  embrace  everything,  and  then  confess 
frankly  to  agnosticism,  grow  old,  experience, 
learn,  and  bend  according  to  the  blowing  of  knowl 
edge.  For  instance,  he  thought,  life  must  be  a 
vastly  different  thing  to  his  father  than  it  was 
to  him,  and  yet  at  heart,  was  there  such  a  pro 
found  and  fundamental  difference  there?  No 
more,  surely,  than  the  difference  already  between 
his  attitude  and  that  of  Don.  Yet  had  they  not 
both  of  them  started  from  the  same  concept  .  .  . 
nay,  had  not  all  three  of  them  started  almost  so? 
Life,  work,  children,  home  and  peace  .  .  .  and  yet 
the  different  lives  of  the  three  of  them  had 
brought  them  finally  to  what  seemed  entirely  dif 
ferent  beliefs.  After  all  .  .  faith  was  of  neces- 


PETER    KINDRED  311 

sity  empiric.  Peter  stressed  those  five  concepts 
differently  than  his  father  had  done,  and  added, 
from  the  vantage  of  his  generation,  still  two  more 
words,  the  state,  and  the  gentleman.  Don,  adding 
the  same  words,  stressed  still  differently,  and 
Peter's  father  would  have  called  Don  an  anarchist, 
a  menace  to  the  country,  an  immoral  fellow,  a 
criminal  (if  he  were  very  angry)  and  possibly  a 
lunatic.  But  back  of  it  all?  ... 

There  were  more  than  just  his  own  problems 
to  worry  Peter. 

"  Joan,"  he  said  to  her  in  April,  "I  have  never 
seen  Helen  look  so  badly." 

"I  know,"  Joan  answered,  "she  looks  very  thin 
and  pale." 

Joan,  too,  was  all  too  pale,  but  Peter  blamed 
it  on  the  spring,  and  the  difficult  winter,  and  New 
York,  and  the  slums,  and  any  number  of  things  be 
sides. 

"It's  miserable  the  way  he  carries  on  about 
polygamy,"  Peter  said,  apparently  irrelevant. 

Joan  nodded.  "It  is  miserable,"  she  said  so 
berly. 

They  were  sitting  together  after  supper  in  their 
narrow  den,  Joan  curled  up  on  the  couch,  and 
Peter  in  the  chair.  He  lighted  a  pipe  and  sucked 
at  it  for  a  moment  or  two  in  silence. 

"It's  sort  of  hopeless,"  he  said  at  last.  Joan 
sighed. 

"There's  nothing  to  do,"  she  said,  "but  next 
year  I  shall  try  to  get  Helen  away." 


312  PETER    KINDRED 

"Away?" 

"Anywhere;  west,  perhaps.  The  more  she  sees 
Don,  the  more  it  hurts  her,  I  think.  She's  never 
been  in  love  before,  and  it's  very  bad  for  her." 

"Yes,  I  suppose  it  is.  Worse  than  for  most 
folk." 

"You  see,  she's  so  fearfully  frank  to  herself 
about  it.    And  then  there 's  the  feeling  of  her  own 
worthlessness,  and  she  can't  get  the  better  of  that. 
And  she  really  needs  . . .  because  she's  so  aroused 
.  .  .  her  first  love  .  .  .  and  at  her  age  .  .  ." 
"That's  just  the  wretched  part  of  it." 
They  were  both  uncomfortably  silent,  while  the 
blood  throbbed  in  Peter's  temples. 

"It  seems  unfair,  Peter,"  Joan  said  softly. 
"Joan,"  Peter  said,  "what's  the  matter  with  all 
of  us?    Why  are  we  so  much  more  at  odds  with 
life  than  our  parents  were?" 
"Do  you  think  we  are,  Peter?" 
"It  seems  so  to  me.    I  don't  believe  that  they 
were  ever  troubled  so.     They  grew  up  and  fell 
in  love,  and  controlled  themselves  ably  and  were 
married  and  had  children.    But  we  all  of  us  seem 
to  be  torn  about  so." 

"Perhaps  they  were,  too." 
"No,  I  am  sure.  Sex  to  them  seems  to  have 
presented  so  much  an  easier  problem.  But  we 
...  we  face  it  and  understand  it,  and  then  .  .  . 
suddenly  we're  helpless  and  totally  wrecked. 
And  still  we're  so  much  franker  and  wiser  and 
braver  about  it." 


PETER   KINDRED  313 

" Perhaps  that's  it,  Peter." 
He  smoked  for  a  time,  thoughtfully.     "Per 
haps,"  he  said  at  last. 

"It  may  be  that  we  are  all  too  nrach  like  chil 
dren,  too  inquisitive,  too  anxious  to  peek  into  all 
manner  of  things,  and  so  we  hurt  ourselves." 

"You  mean  that  we  think  too  much  of  sex?" 

"Sometimes  I  think  so.  Sometimes  I  think  we 
talk  too  much  about  it,  that  we're  too  self-con 
scious.  I  wonder  if  it's  good,  after  all,  to  think 
of  it  so  much." 

"But  that  is  the  only  way  to  master  it,  dear." 

"Sometimes  I  wonder  if  it  is,"  Joan  said. 

"Our  parents  never  bothered  so,  did  they?" 

"I  don't  know  ...  I  imagine  not.  But  we  be 
gin  to  talk  of  things  so  early.  We  go  beyond  love 
making,  and  understand  things.  We  're  biologists, 
after  a  fashion.  And  then  when  we  fall  in  love 
we're  so  old  and  wise,  and  the  love  making,  the 
courting  seems  like  the  play  of  children." 

"And  then  we're  caught,"  Peter  said  bitterly. 

Joan  looked  at  him  intently,  but  he  was  not  look 
ing  at  her.  He  spoke  hurriedly. 

"We  wander  into  the  kitchen  like  so  many  silly 
lobsters,  bundled  up  in  a  shell  of  self-control  .  .  . 
and  we  brandish  a  paper  claw  of  knowledge  .  .  . 
and  then  we're  eaten  up." 

"Yes,"  Joan  said,  "and  perhaps  if  we  just  went 
in  like  onions  ..." 

"Without  anything  at  all  to  defend  us  ...  po 
tatoes,  rather  .  .  .  not  onions  ..." 


314  PETER    KINDRED 

"In  the  meanwhile,  someone  is  making  a  meal 
of  poor  Helen,"  Joan  said  soberly. 

"I  ...  I  don't  think  people  ought  to  talk  about 
babies  so  much,"  Peter  said  a  bit  uncertainly. 
"At  least,  not  until  they're  married." 

"Heavens,"  said  Joan. 

But  it  did  seem  to  Peter  as  though  Helen  would 
have  been  far  happier  if  she  had  known  sex  only  as 
a  shy  young  miss,  thought  love  to  be  a  sweetness 
of  moonlight  and  words  and  prettiness  and  music. 
How  very  much  happier  she  would  be  sitting  by 
some  old-fashioned  casement,  spinning  old-fash 
ioned  dreams  of  Don,  all  the  insistent  tumult  of 
her  body  to  be  miraculously  stilled  somehow  with 
a  kiss.  Peter  thought  of  Edith,  her  untroubled 
amours,  her  complacent  marriage  at  last,  Edith 
stirred  with  nothing  greater  than  curiosity  and 
moonlight  her  life  long,  delicately  ignorant  of 
babies. 

Through  April  he  had  a  deal  to  think  of  that 
concerned  only  Peter  and  Joan  Kindred  and  the 
city.  The  street  car  men  went  on  strike. 

From  the  western  fortresses  of  organized  labor 
agents  had  been  at  work  in  the  city  for  longer 
than  the  city  knew.  And  so,  one  morning,  the 
alarmed  burghers  read  in  their  morning  papers 
above  their  coffee  cups  that  these  men  had  de 
manded  so  much  from  the  companies  for  their 
employees,  and  that  the  companies  had  refused 
to  deal  with  them.  In  two  days,  jammed  with 
screaming  headlines,  with  mass  meetings  of  car 


PETER   KINDRED  315 

men,  with  furious  talk  and  oratory  and  peculiarly 
diffident  voting,  the  strike  was  declared,  and  the 
city  aghast,  found  its  transit  crippled.  But  not 
for  long.  Militia  came  down  from  up  state  and 
sat  in  the  armories  or  paraded  the  streets  very 
fierce  and  bold,  and  new  green  men  manned  the 
cars  and  bumped  them  into  each  other  and  ran 
them  bewildered  about  the  city.  Slowly  transit 
developed,  and  the  strikers,  growing  angry,  took 
to  rocks  and  bottles.  Then  there  were  riots  all 
over  the  city,  and  a  great  seething  and  shouting 
in  the  slums ;  policemen  rode  on  the  platforms  of 
cars,  behind  wire  netting,  and  platoons  of  re 
serves  cheerfully  broke  the  heads  of  men  and 
women  and  had  their  own  heads  broken.  The 
city,  weary  and  forlorn,  crowded  the  sparse  cars, 
or  walked  bitterly;  tiny  public  motors  creaked 
and  bumped  up  Fifth  Avenue  loaded  to  the  ca 
pacity  of  their  springs  with  late  and  footsore 
humanity.  The  companies  stood  firm,  majestically 
dignified,  and  the  organizers  from  the  west  gave 
out  dark  interviews  to  the  newspapers  in  which 
they  promised  all  manner  of  dangerous  affairs  if 
they  did  not  at  once  have  their  own  way,  while 
the  strikers  grew  hungrier,  and  the  slums  seethed. 
Where  was  the  fault?  The  newspapers  took 
sides  with  the  strikers,  for  their  long  hours,  their 
unfair  treatment,  and  their  unfortunate  families. 
Helen  went  in  with  them  heart  and  soul,  and 
painted  the  morals  of  the  companies  a  dreary 
black ;  she  went  to  what  mass  meetings  she  could. 


316  PETER    KINDRED 

joined  a  relief  committee,  came  into  the  tenement 
with  flashing  eyes  and  excited  phrases,  storming 
and  bitter.  But  Peter  and  Joan  took  no  sides. 
They  walked  to  their  offices  and  walked  home, 
hating  the  strike  intensely,  but  they  blamed 
neither  the  car  men  nor  the  companies. 

"I'll  not  believe  these  tales  I  hear  of  the  hor 
rors  of  being  a  motorman,"  Peter  said. 

And  again,  "I  know  that  the  presidents  of  the 
companies  are  fat  and  wealthy  and  impudent. 
We'd  have  very  much  worse  car  service  if  they 
were  skinny  and  worried." 

Yet  it  seemed  to  Peter  that  the  companies  were 
no  more  impudent  than  the  car  men  would  be,  if 
they  could. 

"For  the  rest,"  he  said,  "it's  a  question  of 
whether  I  want  the  bricklayers  and  carpenters  and 
the  masons  to  be  more  powerful  in  this  country 
than  the  engineers  and  the  scientists  and  the  fac 
tory  owners.  And  I  don't.  Still,  it's  all  unfair." 

They  were  walking  home  together  at  evening, 
crossing  Second  Avenue  beneath  the  gloomy 
shadow  of  the  silent  elevated.  Half  way  down  the 
block  a  car  was  stalled,  and  a  crowd  of  people 
were  gathering.  Joan  and  Peter  stopped  to 
watch;  the  crowd  about  the  car  swirled  and 
pushed;  there  was  a  crash"  of  glass,  a  confused 
shout.  The  folk  eddied  and  whirled,  broke  and 
closed  again.  Through  the  momentary  opening, 
Peter  caught  sight  of  a  policeman  with  a  battered 
hat,  using  his  night  stick. 


PETER   KINDRED  317 

"Come  on  home,"  Peter  said. 

A  whistle  shrilled  and  a  squad  of  blnecoats  came 
running  from  around  a  corner.  A  mounted  officer 
galloped  along  the  cobbles,  leaning  low  in  his  sad 
dle.  The  mob  groaned  and  shouted;  stones  flew; 
the  bluecoats  flung  themselves  into  the  people. 
Out  of  the  doors  of  the  tenements  grimy  men  and 
women  ran  howling  and  screaming,  with  sticks 
and  bottles,  clubs,  old  chairs.  Peter  saw  a  man 
lurch  across  the  street  holding  his  head,  blood 
trickling  through  his  fingers.  The  mob  broke  and 
gave  way,  and  suddenly,  Peter  and  Joan  were  in 
the  very  midst  of  them,  struggling  to  keep  their 
feet. 

Terror  seized  Peter,  disgust,  fear  of  the  beat 
ing  clubs,  the  sound  of  them  whacking  at  people's 
heads,  the  howling  of  the  mob,  the  surge  of  bodies. 
He  held  Joan  close  and  struggled  blindly  to  be 
free  of  them,  his  heart  in  his  throat. 

And  then  a  stone  grazed  Joan's  face,  and  cut 
her  cheek.  At  her  faint  cry  Peter  stood  erect, 
with  wide  open  eyes.  An  unholy  might  blazed  in 
him;  he  was  filled  with  fury;  his  nostrils  opened 
broadly.  His  slight  body  leaped  like  a  cat  at  a 
shouting  laborer  in  front  of  him ;  he  picked  up  the 
broken  leg  of  a  chair  and  beat  his  way  out  of  the 
mob  like  a  passionate  wildcat.  Stones  hit  him, 
fists  struck  at  him;  guarding  Joan  with  one  arm, 
he  felt  nothing  but  anger  and  hate  and  the  desire 
to  kill  someone.  His  club  beat  onto  the  backs  of 
men  and  women  alike ;  he  saw  nothing,  recognized 


318  PETER    KINDRED 

nothing.  Inarticulate  sounds  came  from  his 
mouth.  Bloody,  torn,  disheveled,  the  two  of  them 
hurried  down  the  street  toward  their  tenement 
A  hulking  fellow,  taking  him  for  a  striker,  grinned 
at  him  and  shouted  something  in  a  foreign  tongue. 
Peter  snarled  a  curse  at  him,  and  hurried  on. 

It  was  only  the  utmost  passion  of  tenderness 
for  his  wife  that  kept  him  at  her  side,  bathing  her 
cheek,  kissing  her  white  face.  He  was  like  an 
aroused,  caged  animal;  he  wanted  to  go  back 
there  and  beat  up  people,  to  drive  the  whole  world 
into  the  East  Eiver.  He  breathed  unevenly,  and 
his  eyes  glowed.  He  hated  the  people,  hated  them 
with  every  fibre  of  his  being,  the  slums,  the  mob, 
all  the  fury,  the  violence,  the  riot  they  stood  for. 
He  wanted  to  feel  his  club  beat  into  men's  faces 
again. 

That  night  his  smouldering  anger  blazed  again 
at  the  astounded  Don. 

"No  one  asked  my  help,"  he  said,  "or  anyone's. 
They  started  throwing  rocks.  Because  they 
couldn't  have  their  own  way.  I  hope  to  God  they 
starve  to  death.  I  hope  they  have  their  beastly 
faces  pushed  into  the  mud  so  hard  they  never 
come  up.  I  hope  .  .  ." 

Joan  looked  at  Peter  in  wonder.  Down  the 
block,  too  far  for  them  to  hear,  a  woman  wailed 
incessantly.  They  had  taken  her  husband  to  jail, 
and  first  they  had  broken  his  head. 

By  April's  end  Peter  was  moody  and  irritable, 


PETER  KINDRED 

sallow,  and  troubled  with  headaches  that  camped 
at  the  base  of  his  skull.  The  office  bothered  him, 
the  swift  way  things  went  on,  the  complacent  con 
fidence,  the  easy  criticism,  the  daily  writing  and 
rewriting,  puzzling,  composing.  He  went  at  mat 
ters  grimly,  turning  out  flawless  work,  and  sneer 
ing  at  it  as  it  left  his  desk.  He  wanted  to  shout 
to  his  room  companions  to  be  quiet,  to  quit  their 
boasting,  their  ready  mimicry  of  successful  things, 
their  personal  chatter.  He  was  sick  of  impudence, 
of  the  eternal  glitter  of  brass  over  the  whole  city, 
cheaters  decked  out  in  tinsel.  He  wanted  to  cry 
to  the  men  along  the  streets  to  hold  up  their  heads 
and  look  at  the  sky ;  it  seemed  to  him  that  all  New 
Yorkers  were  a  nervous,  harassed,  intent  and  ill- 
favored  folk,  thin  and  mangy  or  blunt  and  wor 
ried,  bitten  with  appetites,  washed  in  lukewarm 
sentiment. 

At  home  he  controlled  his  morose  humor  with 
difficulty.  It  was  a  pathetic  and  peculiar  conso 
lation  to  him  that,  after  all,  Joan  was  his  wife, 
that  he  would  always  be  with  her,  that  she  loved 
him,  and  yet  it  was  the  very  skeleton  of  a  satis 
faction,  a  gaunt  and  empty  framework,  through 
which  his  desires  poured  unheld.  His  life  was 
like  a  sieve  to  hold  the  tremendous  pressure  of 
his  love ;  it  rushed  through  and  wasted  itself  upon 
thin  air. 

After  supper  Ee  watched  her  moving  through 
the  lamplight,  with  sombre  eyes  that  seemed  to 
be  set  upon  a  point  far  beyond  her,  as  one  listens 


320  PETER    KINDRED 

to  music,  while  through  the  opened  window  floated 
the  voices  of  the  slums,  the  rattle  of  wagons,  the 
low-toned  odors  of  the  city  in  spring. 

In  the  morning  he  walked  swiftly  down  Fourth 
Avenue.  Trucks,  motors,  trolleys,  crowded  the 
street;  a  wind  blew  dust  along  the  pavement  in 
black  whirlpools.  Far  above  him  he  could  see 
among  the  roof  tops  the  gentle  blue  of  April  sky, 
and  thin,  white  clouds.  He  walked  through  gloom, 
among  the  shadows  of  the  deep  street  bottoms; 
the  wind  against  his  face  was  stale  and  dusty.  He 
held  his  head  up  to  watch  the  sky  and  his  thoughts 
were  of  Cambridge,  the  low,  level  country,  with 
the  wide  sweep  of  the  heaven  above,  Cambridge, 
the  growing  grass  and  the  aged  trees  in  leaf 
again,  the  cottages  and  gardens,  the  orchards  and 
the  south  wind  and  lilacs.  Cambridge,  and  the 
slow  drift  of  men's  voices  on  Holyoke  Street.  .  .  . 

On  his  desk  was  a  letter  from  Frank. 

"All  afternoon,"  he  wrote,  "I  have  been  in  the 
rooms  of  a  serious  group  of  Carverians,  and  all 
afternoon  they  did  nothing  but  expound  Carver 
to  me  and  to  each  other,  with  infinite  logic  and  in 
telligence.  And  it  was  all  very  stupid  and  very 
earnest  and  very  sad. 

"Why  must  men  be  always  so  intensely  lop 
sided?  Why  is  it  our  inveterate  fate  to  grasp  at 
one  string,  and  follow  that  blindly,  wilfully,  to  its 
extreme?  I,  for  one,  believe  that  there  is  no  one 
answer  to  satisfy  everything.  For  every  labor 
trouble  we  need  a  different  answer.  I  watch  the 


PETER    KINDRED  321 

lives  of  these  people  all  around  me,  and  I  hear 
their  firm  explanations.  How  very  much  larger 
their  lives  are  than  what  they  say  of  them ! 

"And  you  .  .  .  how  goes  your  little  world  in 
the  slums  1  I  have  been  thinking  of  you  these  blue 
and  gold  days.  Lilacs  are  out;  I  have  been  for 
long  walks  in  "Waverly.  But  your  house  on  Holy- 
oke  has  fallen  into  stranger  hands.  I  passed  there 
yesterday;  there  were  two  windows  broken,  and 
Franklin  told  me  very  sadly  that  everyone  in  the 
house  had  been  gorgeously  drunk  the  night  be 
fore.  As  I  stood  there,  there  was  a  bloody  racket 
in  my  old  room,  and  a  book  came  flying  out  of  the 
window.  Eesurgent  youth  .  .  .  Cambridge  grows 
older  and  older. 

' '  Good  old  Don.  He  has  written  me  a  long  brief 
on  polygamy.  It  rages  here,  too,  among  the  most 
advanced  Carverians.  Carver,  I  fancy,  dislikes 
the  idea  a  lot,  but  he's  helpless  now.  It  is  useless 
to  argue  with  such  folk;  they  talk  so  loudly,  and 
they  are  so  sure.  However,  it  is  an  unimportant 
matter.  There  is  always  someone  to  be  confident 
of  disagreeable  things,  from  Eevelations  to  the 
GEdipus. 

"My  love  to  all  of  you.  I  wonder  when  I  shall 
see  you  again. " 

Peter  walked  slowly  through  the  office  to  where 
a  high  window  faced  the  south,  and  stood  there 
with  the  letter  in  his  hand,  looking  down  across 
the  city.  The  sun  had  misted  the  south  with  light, 
had  misted  the  low  roofs  stretching  away  to  the 


322  PETER    KINDRED 

broad,  blue  river,  the  tugs,  the  thin  lines  of 
bridges,  spans,  towers,  fading  into  the  sunlight. 
White  plumes  of  smoke  drifted  from  the  chimneys 
and  blew  across  the  city.  To  the  south  towered 
the  group  of  skyscrapers  at  the  end  of  the  island, 
high,  unbelievably  high  and  remote,  faintly  lu 
minous  and  dim  in  the  sun 's  haze,  and  above  them 
all,  the  slim  tower  of  the  Woolworth  against  the 
light  sky.  The  sun  beat  warm  through  the  closed 
window.  Peter  opened  it  and  leaned  out;  he 
heard  the  busy  humming  of  the  city  below  him,  the 
far-off  jar  of  trucks  and  wagons.  An  idle  wind 
blew  against  his  face,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that 
through  the  odor  of  the  wind  there  was  a  drift 
of  spring,  of  water,  of  country,  of  grass  and  flow 
ers,  somewhere,  very  far  away. 

He  took  a  deep  breath  and  went  back  to  his  desk. 
For  a  day  he  was  glad  that  he  was  in  New  York. 

At  evening  he  walked  home,  up  the  smooth,  dark 
flowing  of  Fifth  Avenue,  that  stretched,  a  line  of 
yellow  lights,  before  him.  Past  shadows  of  the 
Park  he  went,  newly  green,  fragrant,  beneath  the 
cold  and  friendless  dignity  of  gray  stone  houses, 
then  east,  across  the  avenues,  under  the  clatter 
of  the  elevated,  and  into  the  slums.  There  was  no 
odor  now  of  spring,  but  a  dreary  smell  of  people, 
of  rooms,  of  dark  and  dilapidated  hallways.  Chil 
dren  played  and  shouted  shrilly  through  the 
thrumming  of  the  streets ;  their  voices  clashed  to 
gether  in  minor  glees.  A  barrel  organ  wailed 
lugubriously,  and  chattered  thin  chords ;  before  it 


PETER   KINDRED  323 

three  little  girls  in  dirty  dresses  danced  childishly, 
and  nearby  another  group  of  girls  skipped  a  rope, 
reciting  their  monotonous  dogma.  At  Second 
Avenue,  pedler  carts  stood  lined  against  the 
curb,  and  women  bargained  in  high,  excited  voices. 
Through  all  the  evening  there  was  a  wail;  the 
slums  droned  and  whined.  The  minor  sound  of  it 
moved  through  Peter's  body,  filling  him  with  an 
insufferable  longing,  a  vague  and  restless  melan 
choly.  He  wanted  desperately  the  quiet  and  peace 
of  the  countryside,  the  friendliness  of  trees,  the 
smell  of  earth.  He  wanted  to  be  away  from  peo 
ple.  He  wanted  to  be  with  Joan  alone,  to  be  with 
her  and  only  the  night  about  them,  to  be  with  her 
anywhere,  anywhere  at  all  away  from  voices,  from 
eternal  close  walls  and  lamplight,  from  the 
smother  of  the  city  that  pressed  on  him  from  every 
side  He  wanted  to  be  in  Cambridge  again, 
through  slow  and  unpeopled  streets,  the  wide,  se 
rene  evening  ...  he  wanted  ...  he  did  not 
know  what  he  wanted,  but  he  wanted  it  intensely. 
Joan  came  behind  him  and  laid  her  arm  about 
his  shoulders.  With  a  sudden  cry  he  turned  and 
drew  her  down  upon  him  awkwardly  and  kissed 
her  and  kissed  her.  Holding  her  there,  he  buried 
his  face  insatiably  in  the  bit  of  lace  at  her  breast ; 
instinctively  she  struggled  to  regain  her  feet,  and 
her  hair  loosened  and  fell  about  his  face.  He  let 
her  go,  and  turned  away,  biting  his  lip.  She  stood 
before  him;  her  hand  fluttered  a  moment  toward 
him,  but  he  was  not  looking  at  her ;  it  dropped  to 


324  PETER    KINDRED 

her  side  again.  She  stood  irresolute,  and  as  he  did 
not  turn,  walked  at  last  to  the  bedroom,  rearrang 
ing  her  hair  with  both  hands,  her  loose  sleeves 
falling  away  from  her  slender,  delicately  moulded 
arms  as  she  stood  before  the  mirror,  twisting  her 
russet  hair  high  on  her  head.  She  was  breathing 
a  bit  unevenly,  and  smiling,  but  Peter  sat  with 
flaming  cheeks  and  a  beating  heart,  waiting  for 
her  voice  to  class  him  definitely  with  Eddie. 

As  the  evenings  in  May  grew  warmer  and  more 
plaintive,  Peter  and  Joan  found  their  three  little 
rooms  growing  smaller  and  smaller,  the  stove, 
which  always  seemed  big  in  the  tiny  kitchen,  grow 
ing  larger  and  larger.  It  was  jolly  to  leave  the 
tenement  and  the  stove  and  the  dishes,  and  wan 
der  off  upon  minor  adventures  to  the  stoves  and 
dishes  of  undiscovered  restaurants.  Once  they 
dined  uptown  in  a  lordly  fashion,  but  that  was 
too  expensive,  even  for  Peter's  exceeding  wealth, 
and  thereafter  they  sought  out  little  places  down 
town.  They  walked  together  through  the  Italian 
section,  and  ate  in  old,  old  houses,  tumbled, 
painted  in  crude,  dull  colors,  where  clandestine 
and  sleepy  quiet  brooded,  and  long,  thin  crusts 
stood  up  in  glasses  upon  the  tables,  to  crunch  and 
crackle  in  their  mouths.  They  wandered  idly 
through  the  murmurous  Ghetto,  past  the  small, 
gloomy  shops  crowded  one  upon  the  other,  where 
it  seemed  as  though  everything  in  the  world  were 
for  sale;  past  long  blocks  of  pedlers*  carts  piled 
high  with  fruits  and  vegetables,  candies,  linens 


PETER   KINDRED  325 

and  laces.  They  took  supper  in  a  dingy  Hebrew 
dining  room,  and  ate  a  vast  amount  of  remarkably 
good  bread  and  drank  sparingly  of  some  terrible 
coffee.  There  was  almost  a  scene  because  Peter 
refused  to  tell  the  slow  and  melancholy  waiter 
why  he  had  not  finished  all  his  coffee.  And  they 
ate  at  the  famous  restaurants  of  the  Village, 
north,  south,  and  west  of  Washington  Square. 

Peter  was  happier  rambling  so  with  Joan  than 
he  had  been  all  spring.  It  was  almost  as  though 
he  had  won  back  the  untroubled  companionship 
of  the  year  before  in  those  dark  streets,  among 
those  dusky  alleys,  as  though  he  wanted,  after 
all,  no  more  than  to  be  with  her,  to  touch  her  arm, 
her  hand  as  they  walked,  to  whisper  to  her  of  this 
and  that,  and  smile  very  knowingly  at  her  across 
the  table.  There  was  something  articulate  in  ad 
venturing  so,  in  guarding  her  from  all  sorts  of 
imaginary  dangers  and  terrors,  in  demanding  at 
tention  for  her  from  waiters,  in  fussing  tremen 
dously  about  her  coat  and  her  rubbers  and  the 
chair  she  sat  on.  At  any  rate,  it  was  a  good  deal 
more  expresive  than  washing  dishes  and  peeling  a 
carrot,  no  matter  how  he  bustled  about  the  dishes 
or  fussed  with  the  carrot. 

They  took  Don  and  Helen  to  Polly 's,  off  Wash 
ington  Square,  riding  down  Fifth  Avenue,  through 
the  evening  on  the  top  of  a  bus,  high  above  people 
walking  on  the  streets,  peering  down  upon  the 
motors  that  swarmed  slowly  up  and  down  about 
them.  As  they  came  out  of  the  shopping  district 


326  PETER    KINDRED 

the  traffic  thinned  away  until  of  a  sudden  below 
Twenty-third  Street  they  were  riding  down  a  si 
lent  and  deserted  avenue  between  empty  build 
ings.  Across  the  glitter  of  Fourteenth  they 
went,  a  pleasant  wind  on  their  faces,  past  old 
brownstone  houses,  a  rambling  church,  past 
the  age  old  serenity  of  the  Brevoort,  out  of  an 
other  land  entirely,  another  city,  under  the  white 
arch  and  into  the  faint  fragrance  of  trees  in  the 
Square. 

They  walked  through  the  empty  rooms  of  Pol 
ly's  and  out  to  the  back,  and  down  a  stairs  to  the 
canvas-roofed  yard.  There,  under  bright  yellow 
lights,  sat  the  group  of  Greenwich  Village  bo- 
hemians  who  made  Polly's  their  rendezvous.  The 
first  impression  was  one  of  laughter,  of  wromen's 
eyes  staring,  of  colored  tarn  o'  shanters  and 
smocks,  and  general  confugalty,  a  clatter  of 
dishes,  a  chiming  of  voices.  Peter,  striving  to  look 
very  bold  and  bohemian  and  unconcerned,  picked 
out  a  table,  and  the  four  of  them  sat  down  and 
stared  around  them. 

At  first  it  was  hard  to  distinguish  anything,  or 
do  very  much  more  than  whirl  giddily  about  in 
the  atmosphere  and  think  of  Paris  and  Mimi  and 
Eudolphe  and  Louise  and  Little  Billee.  But  after 
a  bit  things  stood  out  through  the  laughter  and 
the  voices  and  the  clatter,  women's  faces,  young 
and  excitable,  bobbed  hair,  colored  smocks,  mis 
chievous  faces.  Everyone  talked  very  loudly  and 
eagerly,  save  a  quiet  few  who  went  seriously  about 


PETER   KINDRED  327 

their  eating.  Peter  looked  in  vain  among  the  men 
for  long  hair,  or  even  a  beard ;  they  seemed  to  be 
rather  slim,  merry  youngsters,  with  here  and  there 
a  blunt,  dark  New  Yorker,  and  here  and  there  a 
stalwart  viking,  probably  from  Harvard.  They 
all  had  an  air  of  rhapsody  about  them,  as  though 
they  might  break  forth  into  something  at  any 
moment,  and  yet  no  one  of  them  looked  to  be  ab 
sorbed  in  any  great  work,  or,  indeed,  to  be  much 
preoccupied  with  work  at  all,  save  those  few  folk 
intent  upon  their  eating.  But  they  were  all  young, 
remarkably  young;  there  wasn't  a  respectably  el 
derly  person  in  Polly's,  and  although  Peter  recog 
nized  the  folly  of  it,  he  could  not  help  dreaming 
himself  in  Paris. 

Having  been  there  before,  he  called  for  Mike  in 
a  loud  voice,  and  presently  that  gentleman  ap 
peared  flying  along  with  a  crowded  tray,  abrupt 
and  bristly.  To  him  Peter  ordered  and  settled 
•back  in  his  seat  again. 

Watching  these  bohemian  folk  more  carefully, 
he  made  discoveries.  For  one  thing,  they  looked 
a  bit  fagged,  and  once  or  twice  he  thought  he 
caught  them  off  their  guard,  and  then  they  seemed 
pathetically  uncertain,  as  though  they  had  stopped 
a  moment  to  ask  what  it  was  all  about.  But  be 
fore  they  even  formulated  their  question,  an  eddy 
of  laughter,  or  some  intense  debate  would  snatch 
them  up  again  and  whirl  them  along. 

And  he  discovered  that  the  women  were  not  as 
pretty  as  they  had  seemed  before.  He  looked  at 


328  PETER    KINDRED 

Joan;  she  was  like  a  rare  and  delicate  flower  in 
a  cluster  of  wild  weed,  and  his  heart  leaped  and 
capered  and  sang  that  she  should  be  so  splendid. 
She  found  Peter  looking  at  her  so  eagerly  that  she 
blushed  and  laughed  and  blushed  again  and  started 
talking  to  Don  very  fast.  But  Peter  came  gallop 
ing  out  of  Paris  at  a  great  rate. 

A  humorously  melancholy  chap  plucked  at  a 
painted  ukelele  he  had  made  from  a  cigar  box,  and 
sang  a  song  about  Greenwich  Village  in  an  un 
certain  voice,  a  song,  however,  that  everyone 
seemed  to  know,  for  they  all  laughed  together  at 
the  appropriate  parts.  The  few  intent  folk  went 
seriously  on  with  their  meals  and  Mike  came  and 
went  explosively. 

"This  fascinates  me,"  Helen  said  to  Peter  in  a 
low  voice.  "Do  you  think  that  all  these  women 
have  studios  and  .  .  .  and  go  in  for  free  love, 
and  all  that  sort  of  thing?" 

"Any  old  room  is  a  studio  in  bohemia,"  Peter 
said,  "and  as  for  the  rest  ...  I  can't  say.  But 
I  suppose  so." 

He  looked  at  Helen  curiously.  Her  eyes  were 
shining,  and  her  cheeks  were  pink ;  Peter  frowned. 

"They  rather  believe  in  polygamy  .  .  .  with 
out  children,"  he  said,  and  smiled  to  see  Helen 
grow  confused. 

"Careful,  old  Helen,"  he  said  privately  to  him 
self. 

"Do  you  think  they're  all  artists?"  she  whis 
pered. 


PETER   KINDRED  329 

"No.  But  they  all  express  themselves,  no 
doubt.  They  wrestle  around  with  their  emotions, 
and  it  keeps  them  fit." 

"Still/'  Helen  said  slowly,  "it's  rather  fine  to 
.  .  .  just  defy  things,  and  live  your  own  life  .  .  . 
and  forget  the  things  you  think  are  wrong." 

Peter  rushed  impetuously  against  her.  "You're 
mixing  up  these  folk  with  the  Masses  group,"  he 
cried.  "These  people  aren't  fighting,  Helen. 
They're  just  out  of  the  world,  having  a  high  old 
time." 

"Well,  then  the  Masses  group  .  .  ." 

"Old  lady,"  Peter  said  seriously,  "anarchists 
are  just  as  passionately  opposed  to  injustice  as 
we  are." 

"Peter,"  Helen  said,  "I  think  you're  wrong 
about  artist  folk.  Perhaps  not  this  kind,  but  the 
real,  long-haired  men  in  cotton  shirts.  All  their 
happiness  is  in  the  life  they  live.  In  being  poor 
and  free." 

Peter  smiled  and  patted  her  hand.  "Happiness 
doesn't  mean  freedom,  dear,"  he  said  with  a  fine 
benevolence. 

"But  passion  .  .  ."  Helen  began. 

"Passion  is  very  popular  these  days,"  Don  said 
suddenly  from  his  end  of  the  table. 

Peter  sat  silent,  biting  his  lip. 

They  walked  across  the  Square  together  in  the 
warm  night,  among  a  crowd  of  people,  mothers 
and  babies  from  the  slums,  youths  and  maidens, 
shapeless  and  noisy.  To  the  south  the  city 


330  PETER    KINDRED 

stretched  to  the  sea ;  east  and  west  the  wide  rivers 
ran  closer  and  closer.  Far  down  town  rising 
among  the  sleeping  buildings,  gleamed  the  red 
light  of  the  Woolworth,  above  the  empty,  cavern 
ous  streets.  To  the  east  and  west  lay  the  slums, 
the  bitterest  slums,  the  slums  of  darkest  and  most 
barbarous  fable,  teeming  with  dangerous,  alien 
folk,  with  crude  gaiety  and  swift  tragedy.  Yet 
here  in  the  Square  was  an  insistent  dignity  and 
sobriety;  the  old  houses  on  Eighth  Street  stood 
sternly  facing  the  oncoming  tenements  as  the  city 
moved  to  the  north.  Down  these  side  streets  lived 
romance;  here  art  lived,  nay,  whatever  of  art  it 
was,  here  it  lived  gaily  and  viciously,  and  starved 
and  made  merry  in  garrets.  Beyond  brooded  the 
people,  lashed  and  forgotten.  The  nearness  of 
life  in  this  Square  beat  in  upon  Peter;  it  was  al 
most  a  threshold  to  reality.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  all  about  him  life  was  real,  uncompromising, 
urgent  and  swift,  light  among  students,  tragic 
among  paupers.  Here  was  no  theorizing,  no  pa 
tience,  no  slow  unfolding  of  beliefs.  Each  day  was 
life,  to  be  fought  for  and  grasped,  torn  and 
glutted. 

The  wind  of  New  York  at  night  blew  in  his  face 
from  the  south.  It  was  a  wind  of  the  sea,  and  yet 
no  wind  of  the  open  sea,  as  Boston  had  been,  but 
rather  of  the  dark  tide  among  wharves  and  ships, 
the  odor  of  the  swift,  seaward  rivers.  He  held 
Joan's  arm  close  in  his  as  he  walked,  and  happi 
ness  swung  into  his  stride. 


PETER   KINDRED  331 

"Only,"  he  said  to  her,  "my  longing  for  peo 
ple  ...  to  know  them  ...  to  be  a  part  of  their 
lives,  to  understand  their  lives — goes  so  far 
deeper  in  me  than  my  experience  .  .  .  and  it 
haunts  me.  For  that  reason  I  wish  I  had  experi 
enced  widely  .  .  .  had  tasted  all  manner  of 
things  .  .  .  Those  folk  we  left  .  .  .  what  do  I 
know  of  them?  What  part  of  their  lives  have  I 
lived?" 

"I  know,"  said  Joan. 

They  walked  together  silently,  closer  to  each 
other  than  they  had  ever  been. 

"I  remember,"  Peter  said  at  last,  "how  im 
patient  I  was  at  the  end  of  my  sophomore  year 
because  I  wasn't  glorious.  And  David,  too  .  .  . 
he  had  no  patience  left  him.  We  have  always  been 
impatient  to  be  glorious,  thinking  to  find  it  around 
the  next  corner  ...  I  wonder  if  I'll  ever  look 
back  on  this  year,  Joan,  and  say  that." 

"I  hope  so,  Peter." 

"Yes  ...  it  would  be  rather  unfortunate, 
really  to  be  glorious,  dear,  and  to  go  around  cor 
ners  without  caring!" 

At  the  Park  Don  and  Helen  left  them,  and  they 
walked  on  together,  talking  of  Cambridge  days, 
recalling  and  criticising,  judging  the  worth  of  old 
things.  It  was  almost  as  though  they  were  alone 
again,  the  streets  were  so  quiet,  and  they  talked 
in  half  whispers.  They  came  into  their  little  tene 
ment,  out  of  the  world,  with  a  strange  sense  of  in 
timacy,  of  being  home,  of  being  together,  always 


332  PETER    KINDRED 

and  always  together.  Peter  took  Joan's  face  in 
his  hands  and  kissed  her,  and  his  heart  was  like 
the  lapping  of  water  at  full  tide. 

Yet  once  at  home  silence  overtook  them  both; 
they  were  ill  at  ease,  and  could  do  no  more  than 
smile  at  one  another  half  timidly,  half  vaguely. 
They  wandered  restlessly  through  the  tiny  rooms, 
arranging  trifles;  they  could  find  nothing  to  say, 
and  yet  each  wanted  to  speak. 

" It  must  be  late,"  Joan  said  at  last. 

They  made  themselves  ready  for  bed  quickly, 
Peter  in  his  den,  Joan  in  her  room.  His  heart 
now  was  unusually  still,  his  movements  detached 
and  methodical.  Through  his  mind  ran  the  three 
ascending  octaves  of  the  Verklarung,  in  stilly 
music.  Somehow  it  seemed  as  though  the  night 
were  of  vast  importance,  but  why  it  should  be  he 
did  not  know.  He  switched  out  the  light  and  went 
across  the  kitchen  into  the  bedroom,  and  climbed 
into  his  bed.  He  bent  above  Joan. 

"Good  night,  dear,"  he  said.  Her  arms  went 
up  about  his  neck  and  drew  his  face  down  to  hers. 

Suddenly  terror  seized  hold  of  him,  and  he  half 
struggled  away  from  her,  but  her  slim  arms  crept 
closer  about  his  neck. 

"Peter,"  she  murmured. 

His  heart  began  to  beat  heavily;  he  felt  curi 
ously  weak,  half  sick.  He  took  a  deep,  sighing 
breath,  and  stooped  toward  her. 

The  mighty  deeps  of  tenderness  stirred  and 
lifted,  eddied  and  broke,  rushed  roaring  and  surg- 


PETER   KINDRED  833 

ing  over  Him,  engulfing  him,  drowning  him,  swept 
on  irresistibly,  up,  up,  in  a  tremendous  tide,  shat 
tering  and  rending,  swept  him  helpless,  strug 
gling,  on  the  very  crest  of  the  wave.  .  .  .  Ah,  but 
he  was  swept  with  it,  the  tide  rose  behind  him. 
And  then  of  a  sudden  he  was  the  tide,  he  was  that 
mighty  power,  he  was  that  triumphant  tenderness 
himself,  he,  Peter  Kindred,  that  thunderous,  music, 
that  deep,  deep  crying  .  .  . 

All  night  he  held  her  very  gently,  sleeping. 

The  next  day  the  sun,  streaming  on  her  face, 
woke  her  to  a  tremendous  and  amazing  din. 

"Peter,"  she  cried,  "my  dear  .  .  ." 

Peter,  in  the  bathroom,  through  a  great  splash 
ing  of  cold  water,  was  singing,  singing  as  though 
to  split  his  throat. 


CHAPTER  XII 

DON  was  shut  away  in  his  room  before  his  ex 
aminations,  with  his  books  and  his  notes, 
coming  out  only  for  meals,  for  references  at  the 
library  and  a  few  minutes  in  the  air  before  sup 
per.  Helen,  grown  impatient  of  Gary  work,  had 
plunged  into  some  books  on  biology,  and  seemed 
to  be  filling  her  mind  with  formulae.  During  the 
early  spring  she  had  met  with  some  radical  folk, 
feminists  and  the  like,  and  she  took  to  spending 
more  and  more  time  with  one  or  another  of  them, 
discussing  everything  and  anything  that  seemed 
unfair,  and  dealing  life  some  mortal  whacks.  It 
was  a  case  of  worm  turning;  she  forgot  herself, 
championing  the  poor,  the  underpaid  laborer,  the 
over-used  mother,  and  with  enthusiasm  for  the 
cause  of  woman's  independence,  she  lost,  to  a 
great  degree,  her  own  dependence.  She  grew 
a  bit  grim  and  relentless,  and  upon  more  than  one 
occasion  startled  her  mother  and  father  into  si 
lence,  a  feat  that  pleased  her  immensely. 
But  Peter  and  Joan  did  not  care  for  Helen's 
334 


PETER   KINDRED  335 

feminists.  To  Joan's  mind  they  were  too  bitter, 
too  excited,  too  eager,  and  to  Peter  it  was  a  case 
of  the  extremist  again,  a  creature  he  viewed  with 
a  deal  of  suspicion,  a  creature  who  would  build 
up  the  whole  house  by  hitting  one  nail  -a  terrible 
blow  and  letting  the  other  nails  be.  But  it  seemed 
to  Peter  that  he  was  always  tearing  his  clothes 
on  a  great  many  nails  and  that  the  house  would 
be  no  less  ramshackle  if  one  were  driven  in  firmly. 
And  there,  I  fancy,  we  have  Peter  finally  a  con 
servative,  after  a  fashion,  and  no  more  entirely 
right  than  Helen,  save  that  he  would  be  glad  to 
see  the  nail  driven  in,  if  it  could  be  done  a  little 
less  furiously. 

But  life  at  that  time  was  too  happy  for  Peter 
to  trouble  himself  with  wrongs,  and  for  a  while 
he  fell  in  love  with  the  city,  even  with  the 
insolent  and  windy  walls  towering  above  him, 
with  the  narrow  vistas  of  sky,  the  river,  the 
bridges  soaring  across  to  the  east,  and  the  deep, 
dusty  streets.  It  was  late  May  in  New  York,  when 
every  wind  from  the  south  and  the  west  brought 
its  fugitive  fragrance  to  drift  above  the  streets 
and  into  open  windows,  when  evening  was  slow 
and  gradual  and  late,  and  morning  was  blue  and 
gold  and  freshly  washed.  Beyond  the  city  the 
counties  were  blossoming  in  daisies,  in  roses,  and 
lilacs.  In  the  office  windows  were  open,  and  in 
quisitive  winds  came  in  to  peek  about  and  rustle 
papers  and  blow  lightly  across  cheeks.  Along  the 
avenues  the  sun  shone  on  straw  hats  and  men 


336  PETER    KINDRED 

walked  without  coats,  and  at  noontime  it  was 
pleasant  just  to  wander  up  and  down  in  the  warm 
ing  sun  and  the  wind  and  not  to  eat  at  all. 

Edith  was  to  be  married  and  the  Kindred  house 
hold  hummed  like  a  hive.  There  were  fittings  for 
Edith,  there  were  consultations  among  the  family, 
there  were  dinners  and  shopping  expeditions,  un 
ending  bustle  and  talk,  furniture  to  be  decided 
upon  and  shopped  for,  curtains  to  be  made,  sew 
ing  to  be  done.  Through  it  all,  Peter's  mother 
moved  radiantly  worried,  rushed,  breathless  and 
excited.  Edith,  whirled  from  her  feet,  performed 
prodigies  of  buying,  and  Eddie,  quietly  dizzy, 
came  to  have  lunch  with  Peter.  He  was  inclined 
to  play  the  braggart  still,  but  Peter  found  it  child 
ish  and  amusing,  and  warmed  to  an  undertone  of 
bewilderment  and  hope  and  a  touch  of  fright  that 
Eddie  could  not  entirely  conceal. 

"You  know,"  he  said  to  Peter,  "what  you  did 
wasn't  as  foolish  as  it  sounds.  It  must  be  sort  of 
nice  just  to  go  off  .  .  .  Say, "  he  appealed  to  Peter 
wistfully,  "do  you  think  we're  going  to  be  friends? 
You  know  I'm  not  strong  on  this  anarchist  stuff 
...  It's  all  right,  I  guess,"  he  said  hastily,  "but 
it's  not  in  my  line.  I  haven't  had  the  time  to  take 
it  in.  ...  Don't  you  think  we'll  sort  of  hit  it 
off  all  right,  though?" 

"I  certainly  do,"  Peter  said  gravely. 

The  rehearsal  for  the  wedding  went  off  gaily, 
the  city  slept — save  Eddie — and  woke  again,  and 
it  was  Edith's  wedding  day.  In  the  vestry  of  a 


PETER    KINDRED  337 

church,  Peter  and  his  father  stood  and  stared  at 
each  other,  and  Peter  was  reminded  of  the  day  he 
had  brought  Joan  home,  and  they  Had  stared  at 
each  other  just  so  wide-eyed  and  puzzled.  He 
thought  his  father  would  always  be  just  so  puz 
zled  at  him,  puzzled  to  know  whether  Peter  were 
such  a  man  as  he,  timid  lest  Peter  should  peer 
into  him  and  find  him  ridiculous,  after  all,  and  by 
finding  him  so,  settle  the  matter  definitely  for  him, 
this  matter  which  he  did  not  quite  want  settled. 
So  he  rocked  up  and  down  on  the  balls  of  his  feet, 
and  beat  one  fist  into  the  palm  of  his  hand  behind 
him,  made  noises  in  his  throat,  and  stared  at  Peter. 
Peter  had  grown  old  enough  rather  to  enjoy 
watching  him. 

"I  suppose  mother  and  Edith  have  been  dress 
ing  all  day,"  he  said. 

"Eh?"  said  his  father,  stopping  his  rocking 
more  or  less  in  mid  air,  "oh  .  .  .  Hmn  .  .  .  Yes, 
yes,  all  day.  Hmm."  And  then,  after  a  silence, 
he  went  on  rocking  again. 

Guests  came ;  the  church  grew  murmurous  with 
people;  the  minister  took  his  place  looking  very 
important  and  reverend;  Eddie  appeared,  white- 
faced  and  somehow  courageous.  An  organ  pealed 
and  shook  and  thundered  through  the  dusk  of  the 
nave,  and  Edith  came  slowly,  dim  white,  carrying 
flowers,  tremendously  unlike  the  Edith  Peter  had 
known,  and  behind  her  his  mother.  A  hush  sighed 
through  the  church,  and  in  the  silence  intoned  the 
marriage  service;  the  rich  colors  of  the  figured 


338  PETER    KINDRED 

windows  glowed  in  the  gloom  and  from  some  high 
window  stole  downward  a  pale  fall  of  dusty  sun 
light.  His  mother  wept  audibly,  and  other  people 
wept,  and  the  voices  of  Eddie  and  his  sister  trem 
bled  and  drifted  before  the  deep,  pealing  ques 
tions.  In  Peter's  throat  a  lump  grew  and  grew,  a 
blessed  illogical  lump,  for  no  reason  at  all,  save 
that  here,  somehow  in  this  unholy  and  inquisitive 
gathering,  life  had  been  touched  with  majesty  and 
beauty,  had  been  expressed  poignantly  and  ten 
derly,  in  all  its  pathos,  its  hopefulness,  its  loveli 
ness  and  courage. 

The  organ  shook  a  passion  of  chords  through 
the  shadow,  and  it  was  over.  Folk  crowded  about 
the  couple  with  kisses  and  laughter  and  talk,  and 
in  their  midst  Peter  caught  a  glimpse  of  his 
mother,  her  face  shining  radiantly  through  her 
forgotten  tears. 

Edith  and  her  husband  were  gone,  and  the  folk 
drifted  away.  The  vestry  room  was  still,  and 
through  the  empty  quiet  of  the  church  the  organ 
ist  played  idly,  watching  the  dancing  dust  across 
the  thin  falling  of  sunlight. 

That  night  his  mother  and  father  sat  together 
alone  in  their  familiar  place.  The  rooms  that  had 
belonged  to  Peter  and  to  Edith  ever  since  they 
were  old  enough  to  have  rooms  of  their  own,  were 
empty  and  dark.  The  two  old  people  sat  to 
gether  soberly,  doing  nothing,  staring  out  before 
them  through  the  lamplight  to  the  slow  and  even 
years  ahead,  old  age  and  growing  quietness  and 


PETER   KINDRED  339 

empty  rooms.  They  had  climbed  a  long  hill;  they 
had  breasted  the  top;  the  road  led  down  again 
into  ultimate  darkness.  They  would  be  always 
coming  home  now  to  empty  rooms  and  quietness. 
The  excitement  had  worn  itself  away,  the  woman 
was  tired ;  of  all  the  company,  of  all  the  stress  and 
planning,  the  talk  and  laughter,  the  momentary 
splendor,  there  was  nothing  left  save  gossip,  and 
two  old  people.  Edith  in  a  train  hurrying  to  the 
southland,  and  Peter  in  a  tenement  across  the 
city  .  .  .  other  roads,  other  faiths,  other  names. 
In  the  morning,  the  man  thought,  he  would  be  go 
ing  to  the  office,  and  mornings  after  and  mornings 
•after  that,  and  then  he  would  be  sitting  in  the 
same  chair  a  while,  and  finally,  an  end.  Haply, 
he  mused,  there  would  be  children,  and  he  would 
be  a  grandfather,  and  told,  like  as  not,  to  mind  his 
business. 

And  so  they  sat  forlorn,  facing  the  stillness.  In 
another  room  the  housegirl  made  a  faint  stir  as 
she  moved  about,  and  through  the  open  window 
the  wind  brought  the  dull  and  heavy  odor  of  the 
city,  the  faint  hum  and  undertone  of  the  streets. 
The  man  roused  himself  with  a  start  at  last  and 
looked  at  his  wife.  Her  hands  lay  folded  in  her 
lap,  her  face  was  lined  and  weary.  He  bustled  to 
his  feet. 

"Well,  mother,"  he  said  uncertainly,  "shall  we 
open  a  little  wine  .  .  .  for  the  occasion  ...  a  lit 
tle  toast  to  the  children,  all  by  ourselves?  .  .  ." 

She  smiled  at  him  and  roused  herself.    To  the 


840  PETER    KINDRED 

south  and  to  the  east,  far  off,  the  names  of  her 
two  children  were  whispered  through  the  dark 
ness  and  were  answered,  nor  was  there,  south  or 
east,  a  thought  of  these  two  old  folk  who  held  their 
glasses  of  red  wine  to  the  light,  and  turning  to 
ward  each  other  clinked  them  together  bravely, 
and  wished  their  children  well. 

"Edith,"  they  said,  and  then,  "Peter." 

Don,  coming  doggedly  through  the  examina 
tions,  took  rooms  in  town  over  the  summer,  and 
continued  his  apprenticeship  in  a  friendly  law 
office  on  Wall  Street.  It  was  unnecessary  to  his 
degree,  but  as  he  admitted  to  Helen,  he  wanted  to 
be  in  the  east  that  summer,  and  rather  dreaded 
the  thought  of  going  back  to  his  family.  With 
Don  in  the  city,  Helen  flatly  refused  to  budge,  and 
since  she  would  not  go  with  her  family  either  to 
the  seashore  or  to  the  mountains  or,  indeed,  any 
where  at  all,  they  flounced  angrily  off  and  left  her 
in  charge  of  the  big  house,  which  she  promptly 
filled  full  with  all  manner  of  radicals,  and  held 
committee  meetings  on  birth  control  in  the 
shrouded  parlor.  When  the  parlor  maid  threat 
ened  to  leave  at  that,  she  told  her  she  could  damn 
well  leave  if  she  wanted  to,  and  that  so  shocked 
the  parlor  maid  that  she  stayed  out  of  spite. 
Joan  was  inclined  to  be  a  bit  upset  about  the  whole 
affair,  and  wished  that  Helen  were  spending  her 
summer  in  the  country,  or  that  Don  had  gone 
home.  But  Helen  took  to  striding  about  the  city 


PETER   KINDRED  341 

in  low-heeled  shoes,  and  picking  up  acquaintances 
among  charwomen  and  bootblacks. 

With  Helen  a  Radical  enthusiast,  her  old  shy 
ness  before  Don  swung  about  completely  into  an 
unusual  boldness,  and  matter-of-factness.  For 
one  thing,  she  insisted  on  having  polygamy  out 
with  him,  and  after  an  excessively  stormy  hour  or 
so,  professed  herself  suddenly  converted  to  the 
logic  of  it.  Thereafter  she  rather  swept  Don  off 
his  feet  with  the  enthusiasm  she  put  into  it  ... 
the  theory  of  it,  at  any  rate  .  .  .  and  Peter  finally 
very  sternly  refused  to  discuss  the  matter  at  all, 
and  would  do  no  more  than  shake  his  head  sorrow 
fully  at  mention  of  it  and  cover  his  ears  with  the 
palms  of  his  hands.  Then  Don  would  begin  to 
shout,  and  Peter  would  open  his  mouth  as  wide 
as  he  could,  and  howl  tremendously,  until  Don 
was  too  out  of  breath  to  do  more  than  grunt  ex 
actly  like  an  infuriated  wild  boar;  through  the 
din  Helen  always  managed  to  find  some  particu 
larly  heartless  and  sexless  thing  to  say,  with  a 
convincing  air  of  really  believing  it.  Finally  Don 
and  Peter  managed  to  break  a  tea  cup  between 
them,  and  Joan,  out  of  patience,  stood  them  both 
in  a  corner  for  five  minutes,  and  told  Helen  to  be 
have  herself. 

On  a  June  morning  Joan  awoke  early  and  com 
plained  of  nausea.  She  was  better  after  her 
breakfast  coffee,  but  the  following  day  she  re 
mained  thoughtfully  at  home,  and  Peter,  in  his 
office,  tortured  himself  with  terrible  imaginings 


842  PETER    KINDRED 

and  swore  Joan  should  see  a  doctor  the  very  mo 
ment  he  came  home,  and  if  one  doctor  were  not 
enough,  why  then  all  the  doctors  in  the  city,  and 
that,  besides,  he  was  a  fool  and  a  chump  to  let 
her  eat  in  all  those  helter  skelter  restaurants.  She 
was  curiously  silent  when  he  came  home  at  last,  a 
bit  reserved  and  almost  self-conscious,  and 
watched  Peter  with  a  look  half  troubled  and  half 
smiling. 

"Joan,"  said  Peter  firmly,  "I'm  going  to  tele 
phone  a  doctor." 

She  laughed  at  that,  and  came  over  to  him  and 
put  her  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

"I've  been  to  see  a  doctor,  dear,"  she  said. 
Her  hand  was  unsteady  on  his  shoulder,  and  Peter 
grew  frightened.  He  sprang  up. 

"What  .  .  .  what's  the  matter?"  he  stam 
mered. 

"I'm  going  to  have  a  baby,"  she  said  with  a 
half  frightened  catch  in  her  voice. 

The  blood  flowed  out  of  Peter's  body,  his  insides 
melted  away,  and  he  was  left  a  mere  numb  intel 
lect  staring  and  staring.  Finally  he  wet  his  lips 
and  gulped. 

"Gee,"  he  said  hoarsely. 

Hearing  and  movement  swam  back  to  him;  he 
walked  across  to  the  table  and  took  up  a  book  and 
put  it  down  again.  Then,  seemingly,  he  remem 
bered  Joan,  and  put  his  arm  clumsily  around  her 
shoulders.  Then  he  sat  down  in  a  chair  and  stared 
at  her,  and  then  he  got  up,  and  then  he  sat  down 


PETER    KINDRED  "343 

again.  All  the  words  in  the  world  had  suddenly 
dashed  together  in  a  great  white  ball,  and  were 
spinning  aronnd  madly,  while  he  watched  nearby 
and  waited  for  a  word  or  two  to  come  flying  out. 
It  seemed  as  though  the  only  word  left  outside  the 
whirling  was  Gee,  and  so  he  repeated  that  again, 
and  waited  for  another  word  to  come.  Finally, 
one  came. 

"  Jinks, "  he  said. 

All  that  evening  he  smiled  at  Joan  with  the 
helpless,  pathetic  smile  of  an  utter  idiot. 

It  was  Helen  who  told  the  news  to  Don. 

"Don,  old  man,"  she  cried  to  him  breathlessly, 
"we're  going  to  have  a  baby!" 

"Helen!"  Don  cried,  and  his  heart  stopped 
beating. 

"Joan,  yon  silly  thing,"  she  said. 

They  capered  about,  holding  each  other's  hands 
like  children. 

"Isn't  it  perfectly  great?"  she  said. 

"Aren't  we  to  have  a  party!"  Don  asked  at 
last. 

"We  two?" 

"Of  coarse  not.  Don't  yon  remember  that 
Peter  promised  ..." 

"Hush,  hush  .  .  .  Why,  Peter  grows  absolutely 
pale  at  the  very  mention  of  it." 

Joan  insisted  upon  continuing  her  office  work 
for  a  while,  at  any  rate ;  they  would  need  all  the 
money  they  could  save,  she  said,  and  Peter,  per- 


344  PETER    KINDRED 

force,  agreed  with  her,  although  unwillingly.  Yet 
he,  in  turn,  insisted  that  she  rest  at  evening,  and 
so  he  cooked  the  snpper,  clumsily  enough,  and 
washed  the  dishes,  and  broke  a  few,  and  burned 
himself  upon  one  occasion,  and  scalded  himself 
upon  another. 

June  wilted  away  into  heat  and  the  July  sun 
blazed  down  on  the  city,  searching  out  the  slums 
with  sullen  fury.  The  wind  dropped  away  and 
the  drone  of  spring  gave  place  to  a  sort  of  breath- 
lessness,  a  gloomy  and  uneasy  quietness,  stirred 
with  faint  muttering.  Peter  was  not  unused  to 
the  city  in  summer,  and  yet  there  was  a  hopeless 
ness  about  it  in  the  slums,  a  sort  of  personal  un 
friendliness,  a  closeness  and  intolerable  intimacy 
with  the  heat,  as  though  the  sun  was  just  a  bit 
nearer,  the  air  a  bit  stiller  and  stickier  and  heavier. 
The  pavements,  burning  in  the  sun  all  day,  kept 
the  city  hot  through  the  night ;  in  the  early  morn 
ing  there  was  a  little  wind,  but  it  died  away  long 
before  noon.  With  no  wind  to  stir  them,  the  slums 
were  like  an  uncleaned  pool,  odors  drifted  idly 
in  the  streets,  close  and  sour  odors,  and  clung  to 
the  tenements.  During  the  day  the  avenues  were 
deserted ;  at  nightfall,  women  in  draggled  blouses, 
and  soiled  wrappers,  with  untidy  hair,  leaned 
from  their  windows  and  called  down  to  the  streets. 
Babies  played  at  the  windows  and  grew  dirty; 
men  in  coarse  undershirts,  with  bare  necks  and 
bare  arms  sat  on  the  steps  of  the  tenements  and 
loitered  in  the  damp  doorways.  In  the  gutters 


PETER   KINDRED 

children  played  their  monotonous  games ;  gangs  of 
ragged  muckers  wandered  about  idly  and  the  ulu- 
lation  of  their  shouting  echoed  and  reechoed 
through  the  streets.  .  .  . 

"Weeallee,  weeallee  .  .  ." 

From  Second  Avenue  came  the  dull  grumble 
and  thunder  of  the  elevated,  and  beyond  Third 
lay  the  city  silent  to  the  Park,  it  seemed,  with 
houses  shuttered  and  boarded  up,  and  no  wind 
even  to  stir  the  dust  in  the  streets.  Only  in  the 
slums  the  people  sprawled  and  waited,  held  their 
breath,  and  on  a  few  window  sills  red  geraniums 
drooped  and  withered. 

It  took  the  courage  out  of  Joan.  Her  face  grew 
white  and  peaked,  her  slender  hands  more  thin, 
almost  transparent,  her  lithe  movements  slower 
and  slower.  She  made  no  complaint,  and  if  Peter 
were  watching  her,  she  smiled.  Alone,  sometimes, 
she  cried;  she  did  not  know  why,  but  she  could 
not  help  herself.  For  a  while,  in  the  mornings, 
she  was  insufferably  nauseated,  and  went  to  her 
work  faint  and  dizzy.  She  hid  her  trouble  relig 
iously  from  Peter,  who  had  no  inkling  of  it;  he 
thought  her  very  brave,  however,  seeing  how  tired 
she  was;  she  could  not  conceal  that.  But  she 
would  not  give  up  her  office  work. 

"Not  yet,  Peter,"  she  said.  "We  shall  need 
every  littlest  penny." 

Peter  plunged  into  his  work  with  all  the  power 
of  his  mind  and  body.  He  was  aroused  to  battle 
for  himself  as  he  had  never  been,  fired  with  the 


346  PETER    KINDRED 

realization  of  his  manhood,  his  fatherhood. 
Belief,  theory,  intolerance  were  forgotten,  he 
grasped  his  pencil  like  a  club. 

"It's  up  to  me,"  Peter  said. 

"It  may  not  be  Carver  to  do  another  man's 
boasting  for  him,"  he  added,  "but  I've  little  time 
now  to  bother  with  that." 

So  Peter  went  patiently  and  energetically  to 
work  and  made  friends  in  the  office.  It  wasn't 
hard  to  swing  into  the  stride  of  things;  it  was 
good  to  be  a  unit  in  some  brisk  energy,  to  claim 
companionship  with  men  in  an  effort.  With  only 
the  need  of  doing  well  to  worry  him,  things 
changed  about  somewhat,  and  seemed  to  be  of  dif 
ferent  stuff. 

"After  all,  dear,"  he  said  to  Joan,  "we  stand 
as  a  sort  of  interpreter.  That's  rough,  of  course, 
but  generally  .  .  .  that  is,  we  find  out  what  a  chap 
wants  to  say,  or  what  he  ought  to  want  to  say,  and 
then  we  take  it  to  the  sort  of  people  he  ought  to 
say  it  to,  and  put  it  so  that  they  can  understand 
it.  It's  not  so  bad,  you  know,  from  that  point  of 
view." 

A  few  men  spoke  of  Peter  Kindred,  linked  him 
up  casually  with  the  Hammond  Watch  and  the  re 
membered  jellies ;  in  August  he  was  invited  to  take 
charge  of  the  copy  department  on  a  small  maga 
zine. 

He  hurried  home  to  Joan  with  the  news,  and 
tumbled  up  the  steps. 

"Joan,  old  lady,  what  do  you  think?  .  .  ." 


PETER   KINDRED  347 

Joan,  however,  was  of  the  opinion  that  he'd  find 
a  wider  field  in  the  agency,  and  thought  it  would 
be  better  to  stay  there  for  a  time,  at  any  rate,  get 
deeper  into  the  matter,  and  watch  for  bigger 
things.  Still  it  was  significant  and  unexpectedly 
pleasant  to  be  asked  to  take  charge  of  anything, 
and  quite  worthy  of  the  little  spree  that  Peter 
suggested  and  Joan,  although  she  had  no  taste  for 
it,  had  not  the  heart  to  refuse. 

"  Jimminy,"  Peter  Said.  "I'd  like  to  get  you  out 
of  the  slums,  dear." 

"Well  .  .  .  yes,"  Joan  said. 

"You  see,"  Peter  began  timidly,  "I  thought 
that  perhaps  if  I  said  yes  to  that  offer  ..." 

"No,  dear,"  Joan  said  decidedly,  "we  must 
look  ahead,  you  know  .  .  .  things  will  be  all 
right." 

"Well  .  .  .  surely  next  year  .  .  .  somehow. 
The  country  ...  or  something." 

"I  hardly  know.  There's  coal,  and  ...  all 
sorts  of  things.  But  the  country  would  be  splen 
did  for  ...  little  Peter." 

Little  Peter! 

Why,  of  course.  He'd  have  to  be  considered 
from  then  on,  and  if  the  country  would  be  splen 
did  for  him,  that  was  important.  Peter  laughed 
quietly;  he  had  been  thinking  only  of  Joan  and  of 
himself,  and  all  that  time  there  were  three  to  be 
considered  ...  a  family!  As  he  laughed  his  life 
grew  and  grew,  sounded  depths,  reached  out  be 
yond  frontiers,  brimmed  full  of  tenderness  and 


348  PETER    KINDRED 

happiness.  What  a  tremendous  big  family  little 
Peter  made ! 

At  noon  they  walked  together  in  Madison 
Square,  and  sat  on  a  shaded  bench.  They  did  not 
like  the  Square  but  there  was  no  other  place  to 
go,  and  Joan  was  too  tired  just  to  walk  up  and 
down.  The  walks  were  crowded  with  paupers, 
the  fountains  played  and  old  men  stood  staring  at 
the  rhythmic  rise  and  fall  of  the  water;  they 
watched  it  dumbly  and  helplessly,  old  men  with 
bent  knees  and  baggy  trousers  and  watery  eyes. 
On  the  benches  sat  ragged  men,  unshaven  and  re 
markably  dirty,  with  tumbled  brown  socks  hang 
ing  over  their  shoes.  Some  read  old  newspapers, 
some  leaned  back  and  slept  and  snored,  many  just 
sat.  Here  and  there  the  bleared  wreck  of  a 
woman,  with  wild,  unkempt  hair  and  untied  shoes, 
sunned  herself  and  mumbled.  Peter  hated  these 
people,  hated  these  wrecks  more  than  he  had 
hated  the  slums,  more  than  he  had  ever  hated 
anything  all  his  life  long.  Indeed,  these  were  a 
vastly  different  matter  from  the  slums ;  here  was 
no  force,  no  evil,  no  unrest,  but  here  was  utter, 
utter  defeat,  man  come  to  infinitely  less  than  noth 
ing,  like  a  drifting  and  horrible  decay. 

Men  walked  swiftly  across  the  Square,  talking 
and  gesturing,  young  men  with  unpleasant  faces, 
dark,  blunted,  bepowdered  little  stenographers, 
factory  girls,  in  pairs  and  groups.  Motors  whined 
by  up  and  down  Fifth  Avenue,  busses  jarred  and 
bumped  over  the  cobblestones  of  Twenty-third 


PETER   KINDRED  349 

Street.  Across  the  Square,  beneath  the  high, 
sunny  tower  of  the  Metropolitan,  perspiring  men 
in  shirt  sleeves  stood  upon  soap  boxes,  tossing 
about  above  the  sea  of  faces  around  them,  shout 
ing  and  gesturing,  calling  for  socialism,  calling 
for  the  brotherhood  of  man,  calling  for  God  and 
religion  and  what  not  besides,  working  themselves 
into  a  veritable  frenzy,  their  voices  hoarse,  their 
faces  dripping  wet,  their  hair  blowing  about. 
They  had  been  bitten  by  a  Cause  .  .  .  below  them 
faces  looked  up  passively;  there  was  nothing  else 
to  do ;  and  it  was  pleasant  to  stand  in  the  sun  and 
listen  idly  to  a  hoarse  shouting.  Across  from  them 
a  man  put  up  a  stand  and  started  to  sharpen  a 
knife ;  after  a  bit  he  cut  up  some  wood,  and  hacked 
at  a  bar  of  lead,  and  sharpened  the  knife  again, 
repeating  a  nasal  formula  as  he  labored.  A  mes 
senger  boy  stopped  and  watched  him,  a  crowd 
drifted  about  him  slowly,  and  stood  waiting.  .  .  . 
For  what?  For  nothing  at  all.  Just  waiting. 

"If  I  could  write  about  the  slums,"  Peter  said, 
"I  should  want  to  draw  them  just  that  way,  stand 
ing  about,  together,  dully,  waiting.  And  then 
working  like  trojans.  And  then  standing  about 
again,  and  waiting." 

"Why  don't  you,  dear?"  Joan  said. 

"That  would  be  a  rummy  go,  wouldn't  it?  I 
might  .  .  .  some  day  when  I  have  my  own  den 
.  .  .  and  everything." 

"Peter,"  Joan  said  suddenly,  "do  you  know 
that  milk  has  gone  up  a  penny?" 


350  PETER    KINDRED 

"Yes,"  Peter  said,  "I  know.  A  dairymen's 
league,  or  something.  Still  .  .  ." 

"But  Peter,"  Joan  said,  "what  of  the  slum 
babies?" 

He  smiled.  "I  think,"  he  murmured,  "you'd 
write  a  better  book  than  I,  old  lady." 

Joan  sighed.  "We'll  have  to  think  of  all  that, 
too,  Peter,"  she  said. 

He  was  silent  for  a  time,  watching  the  sky  above 
the  buildings  to  the  south. 

"Do  you  know,"  he  said  at  last,  "I'll  rather 
want  him  to  live  on  the  gold  coast  .  .  .  some 
where  near  Holyoke  Street/' 

The  wonder  of  it  wasn't  that  he  was  going  to 
have  a  baby  and  be  its  father,  but  that  he  was 
going  to  have  Joan's  baby  and  that  Joan  would 
be  its  mother  and  hold  it  in  her  arms  and  make 
little  sounds  at  it.  This  was  the  remarkable  part 
of  the  whole  matter,  that  his  love  for  her  had 
come  to  something  real,  as  real  as  he  was  him 
self,  something  he  could  touch  and  watch  and  hug 
if  he  wanted  to,  when  no  one  was  looking  .  .  .  and 
after  all,  this  strange  little  creature  would  be 
neither  more  nor  less  than  his  love  for  Joan 
caught,  condensed,  patted  and  moulded  into  shape 
.  .  .  and  he  could  play  little  piggee  with  its  toes 
...  he  grew  riotously  and  happily  confused,  and 
the  baby  kept  changing  like  a  Wonderland  baby 
from  a  formless  expression  of  his  love  for  his 
wife  to  a  creature  with  toes  to  be  loved  for  them 
selves,  and  then  back  again.  But  out  of  it  all 


PETER   KINDRED  351 

came  one  thing  clear,  even  a  deeper  tenderness 
for  Joan,  a  greater  humility,  a  wider  courage. 
Touched  with  fatherhood,  his  life  crowded  for 
ward  like  a  swift  ship  under  a  full  spread  of  sail. 
Men  were  other  ships  to  be  gaily  saluted;  he 
walked  with  a  sort  of  humorous  pride,  and  made 
decisions  about  things  with  the  satisfied  solemnity 
of  an  old  man. 

And  yet  he  planned  very  little,  for  that  would 
have  clouded  the  serene  breathlessness  of  waiting. 

In  September  Joan's  strength  gave  out,  and 
Peter,  given  a  fortnight  for  himself,  took  her 
north  to  her  parents  at  Marblehead,  to  let  the 
green  ocean,  foaming  against  the  rocks,  the  clear 
sky  and  the  bright  wind  struggle  and  blow  against 
her  listlessness.  She  sat  out  all  day  long  under 
a  tree,  white  and  tired,  and  Peter  read  to  her,  and 
old  friends  hurried  to  see  her,  and  blood  came 
swinging  back  to  her  cheeks  again  slowly. 

They  were  fortunately  gone,  for  a  tidal  wave 
of  heat  piled  up  in  the  west  and  broke  itself  upon 
New  York;  horses  fell  in  the  streets,  and  in  the 
slums  people  rotted  and  died  and  babies  wailed 
incessantly.  Milk  went  up  another  penny,  and 
there  was  talk  of  a  shortage ;  hollow-eyed  women 
gathered  about  the  milk  carts  dumbly,  holding 
their  babies. 

After  a  week  of  it,  Helen  called  up  Don. 

"Don,"  she  said,  "if  I  don't  get  away  from 
these  streets,  to-night,  I  shall  die." 


852  PETER    KINDRED 

" There  are  boats  and  things/'  Don  said. 

"Will  you  go?" 

"Where!" 

"On  a  boat,  any  boat — to  Coney  Island." 

"Oh,  Lord,"  Don  moaned. 

"Will  you  go?" 

"To  Coney  Island?" 

"If  you  don't,  I'll  go  alone,  and  have  an  ad 
venture." 

"I'll  go,"  said  Don  hastily. 

They  rattled  down  to  the  Battery  on  the  ele 
vated,  peering  below  them  at  empty  black  streets, 
in  the  warehouse  district,  rushing  along  between 
blank  walls,  shuttered  windows,  secret  and  gloomy 
places  beyond  the  reach  of  the  world.  At  the  Bat 
tery  they  stood  at  the  edge  of  the  city,  the  mass 
of  towers  rising  beyond  them,  the  sonorous  canons 
of  the  avenues,  the  huddled  houses,  the  echoing 
streets  at  their  back.  Above  their  heads  the  ele 
vated  shrilled  around  a  curve  to  where,  spread 
out  behind  them,  lay  the  city,  sounding  with 
many  voices  under  the  night.  Here,  at  the  edge, 
was  the  salt  air  of  the  sea ;  the  moonlight  lay  dim 
across  the  bay;  the  red  light  of  a  distant  ship 
burned  like  a  jewel  on  the  water,  and  a  lighted 
ferry  moved  in  myriad  tiny  squares  of  gold  stead 
ily  far  out  from  shore.  From  the  Narrows  came 
blowing  faintly  the  sound  of  a  fog  horn. 

They  bought  their  tickets  and  climbed  up  the 
dusty,  wooden  stairs  of  the  wharf,  to  find  them 
selves  in  a  smother  of  people.  It  was  hot  and 


PETER    KINDRED  353 

close  nnder  the  roof;  the  air  was  lifeless.  Don 
fanned  himself  with  his  hat,  and  Helen  went  ex 
ploring.  She  came  back  to  him  finally,  and  tugged 
at  his  arm. 

"Don,"  she  said,  "I  want  some  popcorn  and 
some  peanuts. " 

The  boat  swung  in  against  the  dock,  the  people 
huddled  closer  together,  the  gates  were  pulled 
open  and  the  crowd  surged  through.  Beyond  the 
gates,  the  two  of  them  came  clear  of  folk,  and 
filled  their  lungs  with  air  again.  Then  Helen  ran 
lightly  down  the  steps,  and  up  through  the  boat 
to  the  top  deck,  Don  hurrying  along  after  her. 

They  found  a  place  in  the  middle  of  the  ship, 
a  raised  deck  with  room  enough  for  them  to  sit 
there.  A  bell  tinkled  clearly,  below  them  the  en 
gines  thrummed,  the  paddle  wheels  smashed  at  the 
water,  the  ship  shuddered;  above  them  a  steel 
piston  moved  up  and  down  in  the  darkness ;  the 
ship  gained  headway ;  the  land  fell  away,  the  tow 
ers  of  the  city  grew  smaller  and  smaller,  a  dark, 
shadowy  mass  against  the  paler  night,  spun  out  in 
occasional  high  pin  points  of  yellow  light,  and  far 
off,  now,  through  the  moonlight,  the  solitary  red 
beacon  of  the  Woolworth  in  the  sky. 

Don  looked  about  him  at  the  crowded  deck. 
Couples  sat  with  their  arms  about  each  other,  and 
kissed  each  other,  the  women  half  defiantly 
ashamed,  the  men  rowdily  unaware  of  their  neigh 
bors.  From  below  drifted  a  dance  tune,  the  thin 
wail  of  a  violin,  the  jingle  of  a  piano.  The  ship 


354  PETER    KINDRED 

moved  swiftly  and  steadily;  little  by  little  in  the 
eyes  of  men  and  women  other  folk  were  lost,  and 
lovers  saw  only  each  other,  the  night,  the  blue-gray 
moonlight  on  the  water,  the  wide  sky  overhead, 
heard  only  their  own  whispers  and  the  swish  of 
water  under  the  boat.  The  moonlight  touched 
their  faces,  and  rippled  in  shadows  across  the 
looming  funnels  of  the  ship ;  the  wind  blew  steadily 
from  the  sea,  and  fluttered  in  the  folds  of  dresses. 
Dark  hulks  of  anchored  ships  drifted  by,  a  red 
lantern  burning,  and  a  green  lantern,  lazily  rising 
to  the  slow  waves  of  the  bay.  Through  the  Nar 
rows  they  went,  close  to  the  wooded,  misted  shore, 
lanterns  among  trees,  the  yellow  windows  of  cot 
tages,  into  the  wide,  level  stretch  of  water  along 
the  silent  pathway  of  the  moon.  Don  and 
Helen  talked  in  whispers  together,  of  Peter, 
of  themselves,  of  happiness  and  life;  a  wisp  of 
her  hair  blew  across  Don's  face;  close  to  them,  a 
man  and  woman,  cheek  to  cheek,  dreamed  of  the 
ocean,  of  lands  beyond  the  ocean,  populated,  some 
how,  by  such  as  they,  of  friendly  cities  and  fa 
miliar  mountains,  their  tenement  forgotten.  The 
lights  of  Luna  Park  rose  distantly  along  the 
water,  nearer  and  nearer,  and  they  were  there. 

All  things  were  abandoned,  then,  but  laughter 
and  excitement,  and  Don  and  Helen,  their  pockets 
stuffed  with  pop  corn,  dragged  each  other  about 
from  one  thing  to  another,  shouting  in  the  dark 
as  their  cars  sped  down  the  steep  railways,  whis 
pering  to  each  other  in  the  Old  Mill,  winning  no 


PETER   KINDRED  355 

less  than  two  tea  cups  and  a  large  woolly  bear 
from  the  booths  and  galleries  they  could  not 
pass  by. 

The  last  boat  sounded  near  the  wharf,  and  again 
'they  sat  on  the  top  deck  among  the  crowds,  and 
felt  the  wind  blow  on  their  faces  and  watched  the 
dim  smother  of  foam  spread  fainter  and  fainter 
behind  them.  Nearby  two  hatless  fellows  started 
to  sing;  the  chorus  swelled;  Don  sang  along  in  a 
wild,  discordant  basso. 

"Don't  pickle  my  bones,"  he  sang,  and  Helen, 
beside  him,  let  her  head  rest  timidly  against  his 
shoulder,  while  his  eyes  dreamed  out  over  the 
water,  and  his  spirit  grew  big  with  fellowship, 
richly  and  carelessly  content  among  those  people 
in  the  moonlight.  But  Helen,  with  closed  eyes, 
felt  only  the  beating  of  her  own  heart,  and  it 
seemed  to  her  that  she  and  Don  were  there  alone, 
quite  silent  .  .  . 

"It  has  been  splendid,  Don,"  she  said,  when 
they  parted  that  night,  and  for  a  while  Don  stood 
looking  at  her,  still  holding  her  fingers  lightly. 

"It  certainly  has,  old  Helen,"  he  said  at  last 
slowly. 

Again  the  next  evening  he  called  for  her,  and 
they  walked  together  up  Eiverside,  to  sit,  finally, 
upon  a  mottled  bench  beneath  a  great  tree,  the 
dusky  river  below  them,  the  slow-moving  boats. 
Don  laced  his  fingers  about  his  knees,  and  they 
sat  and  talked  of  work  and  of  the  city. 

"Imagine,"  Helen  said,  "our  having  a  baby!" 


356  PETER    KINDRED 

" Shall  yon  pinch  it?"  Don  asked. 

"No  .  .  .  you  must  be  very  careful  how  yon 
pinch  a  baby.  It's  apt  to  give  it  bad  habits." 

"Peter  writes  that  Joan  is  stronger." 

"Don  ...  do  you  think  that  .  .  .  perhaps  .  .  . 
anything  could  happen?" 

Don  sighed.  "I  don't  believe  she  should  have 
gone  on  working,  Helen.  But,  of  course  .  .  .  fish 
hooks  .  .  .  it '11  be  all  right." 

They  spoke  of  the  city,  of  the  summer. 

"The  milk  has  given  out,"  Helen  said.  "The 
dairymen  aren't  satisfied  .  .  .  someone  must  be 
richer  than  he  has  any  right  to  be  ...  but  no  one 
will  admit  it." 

"But  I  thought  .  .  .  from  the  papers  .  .  ." 

"It's  not  official  yet.  I  was  in  Ohrystie  Street 
to-day,  and  then  I  went  up  to  Peter's  street  .  .  . 
the  women  are  frantic.  But  who  cares'?  I  don't 
know  ...  I  don't  think  anyone  cares,  Don, 
whether  the  poor  die  or  not  ...  if  only  there's 
no  violence." 

They  walked  down  the  Drive  arm  in  arm.  It 
was  as  they  had  always  done,  and  yet,  vaguely, 
Don  missed  something;  some  trifle  was  not  as  it 
had  once  been  .  .  .  and  yet  it  was.  Perhaps 
where  Helen's  head  had  rested  so  lightly  .  .  .  but 
Don  had  no  inkling  of  it  ...  if  that  was  it. 

He  spent  a  restless  three  days,  then,  wonder 
ing  what  it  was  he  so  wanted  to  tell  Helen  that 
should  make  him  so  eager  to  see  her  again.  He 
could  think  of  nothing  .  .  .  The  strike  broke  over 


PETER   KINDRED  357 

the  city,  and  in  the  slums  women  wrecked  milk 
carts  and  fought  for  milk  for  their  babies ;  from 
the  west  side  women  poured  east,  wealthy  and 
horrified,  and  blundered  about.  The  companies 
blamed  the  farmers,  and  the  farmers  blamed  the 
companies,  while  the  people  suffered  and  won 
dered  and  waited.  .  .  . 

For  three  days  Helen  lived  in  the  slums  from 
morning  till  night,  finding  milk  somehow  for 
babies,  begging  it,  fighting  for  it,  and  stealing  it, 
and  during  those  days  Don  could  not  see  her  at 
all  nor  even  discover  her  to  talk  to.  After  a  day 
of  overwhelming  silence  he  was  uneasy  and  there 
after  restlessness  grew  swiftly  on  him,  and  this 
thing  he  so  wanted  to  tell  her,  swelled  in  him 
dumbly  and  bit  at  him  with  its  importance,  drove 
work  out  of  his  head,  filled  his  body  with  crying 
rebellion,  until  at  last,  at  noon  of  the  fourth  day, 
he  walked  the  streets  of  the  lower  city  in  such  a 
gnawing  fever  of  impatience  that  it  seemed  almost 
as  though  his  body  would  burst  with  a  horrible 
bang  and  scatter  him  into  a  thousand  pieces.  And 
yet  he  had  formulated  nothing  ...  he  trudged 
in  the  shadow  of  the  street  bottom,  cursing  the 
high  buildings  that  sneered  down  at  him  so  in 
solently,  grumbling  at  the  summer,  hating  the 
hurrying  people  who  moved  in  his  path.  He  came 
back  to  his  office  with  his  lunch  untasted,  hot, 
sullen,  insubordinate.  There  was  a  telephone 
number  on  his  desk.  He  pulled  off  his  coat  and 
pulled  the  telephone  to  him  angrily. 


358  PETER    KINDRED 

"Yon  may  get  me  that  number,"  he  said  to  the 
girl. 

He  waited  without  thought,  brooding,  drifting 
with  the  impatient  tide  of  his  body. 

"  Hello. " 

Was  he  Mr.  Don  Mark?  Good.  The  Jefferson 
Market  Court  speaking  .  .  .  Magistrate  O'Reil 
ly's  clerk  ...  a  woman  there  .  .  .  one  Helen 
Graff  ...  or  Goff  .  .  .  charged  .  .  .  disseminat 
ing  birth  control  literature  .  .  .  stealing  milk  .  .  . 
assaulting  an  officer  .  .  .  bail  .  .  . 

Three  minutes  later  a  hatless,  coatless,  murder 
ous,  blond  young  man  came  charging  through  the 
swinging  doors  of  a  court  room  like  an  angry 
bull,  and  was  promptly  fined  for  contempt.  .  .  . 

The  Kindreds  came  down  from  Marblehead,  a 
bit  tanned,  and  Joan  was  her  old  self  again,  or 
seemed  to  be,  although  she  rested  a  good  deal,  and 
her  face  and  hands  were  very  thin.  But  Peter 
came  down  in  love  with  the  sea,  and  more  than 
ever  in  love  with  New  England ;  it  touched  Helen 
to  see  how  wistfully  Joan  looked  at  Peter  when 
she  thought  herself  unseen,  and  how  Peter  bustled 
about  her  and  took  care  of  her.  Those  days  of 
rest  in  the  north  after  their  community  of  strug 
gle,  had  wrought  and  linked  them  together,  as 
though  there,  in  a  meadow  above  the  sea,  they  had 
fallen  in  love  with  each  other  all  over  again.  And 
Helen  was  happy,  too,  and  quiet.  She  whispered 
it  to  Joan. 


PETER   KINDRED  359 

"You  glorious  child,"  Joan  cried,  "are  you 
sure?" 

Helen's  laugh  was  low  and  deep  with  content. 
"You  didn't  see  his  face  when  he  saw  me  in 
court,"  she  said,  "and  I  was  a  sight  for  the  gods 
...  all  beaten  to  pieces  and  muddy  .  .  .  But  you 
mustn't  tell  a  soul,  because  he's  only  finding  it 
out  for  himself  now,  the  dear,  funny  old  thing." 

Peter  was  in  town  for  the  last  days  of  the  milk 
famine,  and  watched  the  long  line  of  miserable 
women  standing  before  a  relief  station,  their 
starved  babies  hugged  tight  to  their  breasts. 

"How  useless  it  all  is,"  he  thought,  "this  tre 
mendous  waste  of  human  life  and  human  energy, 
for  lack  of  a  power  to  direct  it.  ...  So  many 
wretched  beings  dying  of  too  little,  while  those  we 
trust  to  feed  them  are  at  each  other's  throats  for 
more  .  .  ." 

"There  would  be  enough  for  all,"  he  said,  "if 
only  there  were  a  power  to  arrange  it.  A  power 
impersonal  beyond  selfishness,  and  wise  beyond 
discontent,  a  power  to  hate  ...  to  make  an  end 
of  greed,  an  end  of  grasping  .  .  . 

"To  allot  to  each  man  his  decent  share  .  .  . 

"Perhaps  some  day  all  men  will  be  forced  to 
fight  bitterly  for  their  race  life,  fight  side  by  side 
against  the  darkness,  husbanding  their  energy, 
making  use  of  all  that  man  can  devise,  only  to  live 
.  .  .  out  of  such  a  catastrophe  that  power  may  be 
born,  grim,  urgent,  relentless  .  .  .  and  then,  at 
last,  every  man  will  be  necessary  to  every  other 


860  PETER    KINDRED 

man  .  .  .  there  will  be  room  for  neither  the  arro 
gant,  nor  the  lazy  .  .  .  there  will  be  room  for 
neither  pride  nor  profit,  but  only  for  a  great  will 
to  live  and  work  and  hold  our  grasp  on  the 
sun.  ..." 

The  fall  winds  swept  through  the  city,  boom 
ing  out  of  the  west,  blowing  the  sky  bright,  bur 
nishing  the  copper  gleam  of  sun  on  the  roof  tops. 
Outdoors  drifted  an  odor  of  gathering  chill,  of 
ending,  of  hurrying,  and  at  night  the  street  lamps 
burned  clear  in  the  city  through  the  wind.  From 
his  office  window  Peter  watched  the  clouds  move 
across  the  north;  beyond  lay  Cambridge,  her  halls 
echoing  again  to  voices  and  footsteps,  the  drift 
and  tang  of  far-off  fires,  the  kindly  Yard,  the  old, 
old  houses  .  .  .  Frank  .  .  .  and  youth  resurgent, 
eager  and  untried,  light-hearted  .  .  .  how  the 
odor  of  those  years  came  to  him  from  the  north 
again,  above  the  tumbled  papers  of  his  desk ! 

In  the  den  of  the  tenement  sat  Joan,  sewing  at 
tiny  dresses  with  awkward  and  impetuous  fingers. 

The  wind  boomed  louder  and  shrilled  about  the 
roofs,  the  sky  grew  grayer  and  grayer,  the  sun 
sank  further  to  the  south.  From  the  north  drifted 
a  fine  flurry  of  snow,  fell  lightly  above  the  roof 
tops,  melted. 

December  grew  old,  and  for  Christmas  the  shop 
windows  were  bravely  dight  in  tinsel  and  baubles 
and  holly  and  tops,  and  the  air  tingled  faintly  with 
the  scent  of  pine  trees.  On  the  avenues,  before 


PETER   KINDRED  361 

boxes  for  the  poor,  red-hooded  and  white-whis 
kered  Santa  Clauses  stood  shivering  with  cold, 
and  rang  little  tinkling  bells  without  hope.  Be 
yond  the  tenements,  the  river  was  gray  and  wrin 
kled  and  chill.  Then  the  river  was  still  and  deep, 
heavy  green.  And  then  from  the  sea  swooped  a 
white  tumult  of  storm,  slanting  the  snowflakes 
through  the  sounding  streets,  tearing  at  the  cor 
nices  of  roofs,  smothering  the  city  in  piling  white. 
And  through  the  storm  Peter's  voice  calling  Bos 
ton  desperately,  across  the  desolate  and  wind 
swept  land,  his  telephone  before  him. 

Silent  and  anxious,  Joan's  mother  raced  south 
through  the  flutter  and  beat  of  snow. 

The  storm  spent  its  fury,  tattered  away  into  fly 
ing  gray  clouds  at  night,  and  the  sun,  rising 
golden  in  the  east,  kindled  the  city  to  a  blaze  of 
white  and  shone  in  Joan's  still  room  at  last.  And 
Don  came  wearily  out  of  the  tenement,  and  stum 
bled  blindly  west. 

Helen  caught  at  his  arm  and  shook  him  as  he 
came  in,  but  his  face  was  tell-tale.  She  grew  pale, 
and  her  eyes  widened. 

"The  baby  .  .  .  Don?"  she  said  faintly.  He 
could  not  speak ;  he  shook  his  head. 

She  pressed  her  clenched  fist  against  her  mouth, 
and  struggled  fiercely  with  her  words. 

"Joan?"  she  whispered  at  last.  Don  took  a 
deep  breath. 

"The  baby  is  dead.  They  think  that  Joan  will 
come  out  all  right  .  .  .  finally  ..." 


362  PETER    KINDRED 

His  voice  trembled.  He  was  very  tired,  and  his 
eyes  filled  with  tears.  Clumsily  he  put  out  his 
hands  to  her,  and  lifted  his  head. 

" Helen/'  he  said,  and  she  took  his  hands  and 
pressed  them  and  bent  her  head  above  them. 

In  the  tenement  a  young  doctor  whispered  to  a 
sober,  white-capped  nurse  in  brief,  staccato  sen 
tences.  At  the  window  a  woman  with  a  drawn 
face  stared  out  blindly  at  the  street — in  Joan's 
room  was  silence  and  the  heavy  odor  of  chloro 
form. 

In  his  den  Peter  sat  alone  and  bowed  his  head 
above  his  shivering  hands. 

"A  power  to  control  ...  a  power  to  hate  .  .  . 
wise  and  impersonal  .  .  ." 

«  '  Isn  't  God  there  ? "  he  cried  at  last.  *  '  Isn  't  God 
anywhere?"  He  stood  erect.  "I  will  go  and  find 
God,"  he  said. 

But  all  men  go  to  find  Him,  the  armies  of  their 
faith  thundering  before  them ;  on  every  field  their 
faith  is  challenged  and  confused,  and  on  every 
field  they  search  with  outflung  arms  to  come  to 
grips  with  God. 

THE     END 


14  DAY  USE 

""  ™  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROW 
LOAN  DEPT 


LD  21A-50m-8  '57 
<C8481810)476B 


.General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


YB         44 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


